Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----to speak after what they have done. I hope their callous attitude to the Irish people will never be forgotten. The party opposite fiddled and bankrupted the country. Now, they prey on the fears of vulnerable people in a mockeyah way. Shame on them. This budget is difficult and it will, unfortunately, affect every household and every citizen. None of us on this side of the House wants a budget that has to take €3.1 billion out of the economy and which results in people losing money. However, this nation is borrowing €42 million per day in order to run the country, to fund public services. I remind the Members opposite that we are in an EU-IMF programme. It was the former Government which went to Brussels to get that bailout because we could not access money to run the country. The gentlemen opposite may have forgotten that. I wonder what world the Leader of the Opposition lives in when I hear his complaints on the Order of Business. He was the man who sat in Cabinet and who acquiesced in decisions. He was the man who cut pensions for the old, the blind and the disabled, by €16.50 per week, when he was a member of the Cabinet. Not one Member opposite voted against those cuts. They come in today, tonight and tomorrow, with sham indignation. They threaten to call for a vote through the lobbies to embarrass people. The embarrassment is in their own laps because of what happened on their watch. They failed the Irish people, politically, economically and socially.

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