Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tonight, families are sitting back to count and try to calculate how much they have. They are trying to work out which bills they can pay and which bills they cannot pay. They are looking at their grocery bills and wondering what they can and cannot afford. The Government does not care. It has done its calculations and it knows how much money it is picking from the pockets of its citizens. Despite the claims of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste that they are in favour of open, transparent and accountable government, I do not think they want a proper debate on the despicable budget they have introduced. The people elected them last year because of the clear pledges and the promises they had made. They said they would not give another red cent to the banks. Instead, they have given €20 billion to the banks. They said they would protect child benefit and cut prescription charges. The Labour Party and Fine Gael said they would protect the elderly and vulnerable and sort out the health service. They have failed on all of these counts and more. They said they would tell our European partners that the EU-IMF deal is bad for this State, but one of the first things they did was pay a €3.1 billion promissory note instalment to the zombie bank Anglo. They should not be asking the citizens to shoulder this unsustainable banking debt as they are having to do.

The Government told us in June that the European Stability Mechanism would deal with legacy bank debt. The Tánaiste said firmly on more than one occasion that it would be Labour's way or Frankfurt's way, but instead he went Fianna Fáil's way. Fine Gael said it would impose burden-sharing on bondholders, before it somersaulted and protected bondholders, even in toxic banks like Anglo Irish Bank. The Taoiseach made it clear today that the Government will not reverse the cut in the respite care grant. These big men can be tough on the sick, the disabled and the elderly - that is no problem to them - but it is another story when it comes to the high salaries and pensions of Minister and senior civil servants. They have no problem breaking their own salary ceiling for special advisers, but they cannot find more money for home help care. They have no problem signing off on obscenely high salaries for the bankers who created this mess, along with Fianna Fáil and others, and are now employed in banks owned by the State, but they cannot find money to help mothers trying to buy clothes for their children as they go back to school. Last week's budget attacked carers, the sick, the elderly, children and families.

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