Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's opening sentence gives an insight into the Government's thinking. Did the Taoiseach and his colleagues give this matter careful consideration? If he missed it, if it did not come on his agenda for some reason or other, that would at least have been understandable, but it seems he did give it careful consideration after all. He does not, however, seem to have given careful consideration, although perhaps he did, to cutting his own salary or the salaries of Ministers and their advisers. Careful consideration was not apparently given to the bankers who are on huge pensions or are still, even though they helped to create the mess we are in, drawing down huge salaries.

I do not know Pat O'Mahony or his wife Margaret, but I know lots of people like them. Mr. O'Mahony writes this morning that the Taoiseach does not give a fiddler's for him and his wife. He is right. The Taoiseach has just said that he will not reverse the cut to a payment on which this man and his wife depend to get through life. The Taoiseach was not sent into this Chamber to do this. He and his party sought an entirely different mandate, as did the Labour Party. They are doing the very opposite of what they were sent in here to do. This Administration is totally indistinguishable from the Fianna Fáil Government it replaced.

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