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

The safety valve for the Tánaiste's political skin is to ensure that young and not-so-young people leave because his Government cannot provide the jobs and the opportunities for them here.

The Government is happy to leave the domestic economy crippled by a double whammy of cuts to the disposable income of those who spend most, namely low and middle income workers. It does not have the ability to think strategically and to invest wisely. The Government had no problem pumping funds from the National Pension Reserve Fund to prop up the banks but it singularly failed to deploy this fund, of some €6.4 billion, to get people back to work. There have been announcements about this fund on three separate occasions but the Government still has not delivered. Government Deputies should not come back in here talking about it again until they are in position to deliver it. Investment of scale is required to deliver significant employment and opportunities for our people, in particular for our young people.

I was listening today to the Government's friend, the German Finance Minister, Mr. Wolfgang Schäuble, who has knocked on the head any notion the Government may have had about a retrospective recapitalisation of the banks. As my colleague Deputy Pearse Doherty asked earlier, what has happened to that so-called game changer? For all the talk about the new bank levy, progress and exiting the bailout, would it not be a real scandal and tragedy if the very people who are being cut, cut and cut again are left with the legacy of that €65 billion in bank debt? Would that not be a scandal? Mr. Schäuble had something interesting to say today. When asked why the banks would not be recapitalised, he said that "everything is fine" in Ireland. He said that on the airwaves - "everything is fine" in Ireland. I can only presume the Government has told Mr. Schäuble, and reassured him, that everything is just fine in Ireland. If only he knew the truth. If only the Government could speak the truth and act in the interests of the truth because everything is not fine. A total of €1.6 billion in cuts to the most vulnerable, the young and the elderly, is not fine. No matter what way the Government spins it or dresses it up, the people are alive to that reality.

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