Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The people of this country are not interested in political spats at the moment, they are interested in survival, a fact confirmed by the ESRI today, which shows that more than one in five households in this country suffers from joblessness and they are doubly and trebly hit by having to support large families and support disability and by being concentrated in low paid work. The report reveals the shameful fact that, contrary to the Taoiseach's repeated claims we are in a better position than Greece or Spain, Ireland is one of the most, if not the most, unequal societies in Europe.

The Taoiseach's budget has chosen to attack precisely this group yet again. He has attacked children, he has attacked women, he has attacked the disabled and he has attacked low paid workers. In many cases, it will be the same households hit from the left, hit from the right, hit from the middle and stabbed in the back with these cuts to vital supports and to the income they desperately need to keep their heads above water, despite the solemn promises made by the Taoiseach to prioritise the disabled and made by the Labour Party three days before the general election that it would not touch child benefit.

Can the Taoiseach seriously claim this budget is fair? Is he not ashamed to have betrayed the trust of the people who voted for him and the people who voted for the Labour Party in visiting these attacks on precisely the groups he promised he would protect?

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