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

Sinn Féin’s budget 2014 proposals are truly fair because we sought to give low and middle income families a break by putting money back into their pockets. The Government could have taken the almost 300,000 of the lowest paid workers out of the universal social charge net. It could have honourably reversed its cut to the respite grant and given carers a break. The Government could have called a halt to the constant ratcheting up of third level fees. All of those measures were possible but the Government set its face against them. One must ask why that is the case. Is it because all of the tea and sympathy rhetoric routinely spouted in the Dáil by Government Deputies is just bluff, or is it due to something else?

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