Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When I was ten years old I started earning pocket money. I earned it by doing odd jobs around the house. I was conscientious but I did not have much choice. If I did not do my jobs I did not get paid; it was that simple. I became good at budgeting and I appreciated the value of money. I appreciated the cost of commodities and I appreciated my financiers, my mother and father. There was no sense of entitlement in our house. If one wanted something, one worked for it. More important, I appreciated that I could not simply get what I wanted and that I had to work hard for it.

Unfortunately, many of us have failed to teach our children these tools. During the so-called Celtic tiger era, money was easy and pocket money became a thing of the past. Children received an allowance and we became posh. Many people ran away with themselves. Many people borrowed money recklessly and many banks lent money recklessly. In many families children got more than €50 or €60 to keep going. If they ran out, there was an unwritten rule that they could tap their parents for more. During the Celtic tiger era we were too busy accumulating, socialising and consuming. We were too busy to be concerned with budgets or to teach our children life skills. We were too busy to be concerned about putting the skills embedded in us into practice. William Feather said that a budget tells us what we cannot afford but it does not keep us from buying it. That was our philosophy in a nutshell at an individual level, at county level and at national level.

Where do I place the blame? It lies with the Government, Deputies, banks and the regulator. We were all appointed to lead by example but we did a poor job. Like careless parents, they gave us everything but they did not call a halt and only fuelled the party. George W. Bush said "It's clearly a budget. It's got lots of numbers in it". That was the Government's approach. We were flying high on a property bubble and we were encouraged to spend, spend, spend. That was the level of thinking about the sustainability of our budgets. It was only a matter of time before it all collapsed.

Unfortunately, we all got bruised by the landing, including the most innocent among us. In many ways, these people got hurt the most. Not one day goes by in my office when I do not receive e-mails and telephone calls from persons in serious negative equity struggling to put food on the table and to send their children to school. People who have lost their jobs ring me, as do older persons who have lost their pensions for which they spent 40 years saving. Other people contact me who had invested their money in bank shares, which were supposedly as safe as houses. This must never happen again.

I support the Bill just as I supported the fiscal stability treaty referendum. Now that I am a Deputy, I aim to provide leadership and to instill the values my parents instilled in me, values associated with money, commodities and finance. This is to ensure that our country is never again brought to its knees because of reckless budgeting and the banks. It will not be easy to bring Government spending within sustainable limits and to balance the budget. It is not a small task but we are getting there, taking our medicine and making the hard decisions. We are not treating Irish citizens like overindulged children because that would not benefit Irish citizens in the long run. If those in the previous Government learned anything, I hope they learned that much.

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