Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today, citizens throughout this State needed to hear a message of hope. The elderly, the unemployed, families in mortgage distress and households struggling to survive needed to see actions that would inspire confidence. The Taoiseach needed to take decisions that would give some relief to families and workers who have been battered by the austerity budgets during his time in government. Today, however, he has let the people down, as we witness again the actions of a Government that is arrogant, out of touch and utterly indifferent to the devastation a cocktail of cutbacks, unemployment and emigration has laid on our society.

The sight of the two Ministers with responsibility for finance taking to their feet with a message of hardship to deliver tough medicine to the citizens is now an annual Fine Gael and Labour Party event. The constant refrain of "fairness" serves only to underline just how unfair their Government is. It is nothing short of astonishing to hear this use and abuse of the vocabulary of fairness. Many terms could be used to describe this Government's policies over the past years; many words can describe the vicious austerity budgets, but fairness is not one of them. Tá méadú suntasach agus scanrúil tagtha ar líon na ndaoine a bhfuil ag streachailt lena gcuid morgáistí. Is iomaí clann atá fágtha gan pingin rua ag deireadh na míosa. Tá na daoine seo tuirseach agus tá siad ag fulaingt. Tá sos uathu. A fair budget would have given low- and middle-income households a break by putting money back in their pockets, but this Government's targeting of low- and middle-income families has been relentless. Its attack on the living standards and spending power of the average citizen has been ruthless. Its assault on basic social protections has been calculated and cruel. Notably, these sit side by side with an absolute determination to protect the wealthy, and wealth itself.

Having listened to the twin Ministers for hardship, Deputies Noonan and Howlin, I can only conclude that the Government is determined to leave struggling households in their despair and to force many thousands more of our young people onto the emigration path. Yet it seems to live in a world of make-believe, applauding its members for what it calls tough decisions as they congratulate one another on the bravery of their stance. For the sake of clarity, and for the record, the Government needs to know that families who cannot heat their homes, couples that cannot make their mortgage repayments and parents who Skype their children in Sydney and Boston will not be joining in this chorus of self-praise.

People across the State and those in enforced exile will now wonder whether recovery is actually possible on this Government's watch. It is now clear that it does not have a plan for economic growth, for employment or for debt relief. Clearly, it has no clue whatsoever about the provision of decent public services. What makes this all the worse is that today, in the Dáil, the question is whether the Government even cares. It is now almost three years in office - three long years during which people have not seen any real improvement in their living standards. People who are sick and have had their medical cards taken away, people with disabilities who have faced cut after cut, young jobless people and people at work - all of these see no prospect of improvement. The Government's legacy right now is one of hopelessness. The citizens of this State could not have been clearer in the mandate they afforded this Government in 2011. The Taoiseach and his colleagues knew what that mandate was. The people voted for change. What they have got is more of the same.

Today marks the point at which almost €30 billion has been bled from the economy. Economic growth stands at 0.2% for this year. That is the Minister's boast. Unemployment is at 13.3%, and of that figure the long-term unemployment rate is 60%.

It hardly needs to be said to the Government that this is not a success story. Far from it, no matter what way one tries to spin it. To borrow a phrase from the Taoiseach, today's budget delivers another almighty wallop to the people.

The real tragedy and scandal is that it does not have to be this way. The Government has the option of giving real relief to struggling families. Sinn Féin set out the costed alternatives in our fair budget proposal. It included abolition of the tax on the family home, meaningful, substantial assistance with the cost of school books, help to heat the home and extension of school meals. We put all of those measures on the table and all of them were costed and deliverable.

See this speech in context