Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I dtús báire, caithfidh mé a rá go bhfuil mé i bhfábhar an rún seo ar ghnó Comhaltaí Príobháideacha. I agree with the sentiment represented by the motion. It reads like a clear enough statement that there were fairer options this Government could have chosen in budget 2014 but did not. It makes the point that it will create financial hardship and that it is unfair and disproportionate. It recognises that the least well-off, those who have nothing left to give, are being targeted for cuts by this Government. It is, despite the negative of not offering a real solution, a correct summation of the budget presented by the Government.

Let us be honest with ourselves. The Government will not accept even this very moderate criticism of a budget, which was unfair, will hurt many people and will put lives at risk. Why not make a real statement for change? Why not use this motion to set out the stall for a real alternative to the policies of Fine Gael and the Labour Party? It is helpful to highlight wrong that is done but so much more valuable to offer solutions, which could avoid those wrongs.

The reason this motion lacks this is because it comes from a party which, like the Government, pays only lip-service to fairness. Fianna Fáil is not opposed to targeting the vulnerable, the old, the unemployed and the poor for cuts. It just believes it is the only party that has the authority to do so. It certainly showed no such qualms about austerity when in government, from its first austerity budget, through the bailout period and until it was shown the back door by the people utterly sickened at the result of 14 years of its rule.

If Fianna Fáil were serious about opposing austerity and about promoting fairness and equality, it would not have been so quick out of the traps to use spin and outright lies to attack the alternative proposals of Sinn Féin which were founded on just those principles Fianna Fáil would like to fool us all into believing it has an understanding of. Fianna Fáil's alternative to Fine Gael and the Labour Party austerity is no alternative. The only difference is a few millimetres in the comparative thickness of their brass necks.

This budget was the seventh austerity budget of which the State has been the victim since the collapse of the property bubble nurtured by Fianna Fáil and cheered on by the political and media establishment. These budgets have brought great pain and hardship to working class communities, people with disabilities, the elderly, children with learning difficulties, those from the Traveller community, young people struggling to get work and families with empty chairs at the dinner table marking a generation of young people once again sent to the four corners of the globe in the hope of a life their home could not offer them. This budget continued that tradition and, despite the spin of Fine Gael and the Labour Party, it will offer no comfort to ordinary people.

Young unemployed people will have to live on €100 per week until the age of 25, and even then they will be on a reduced rate. This is a slap in the face to young people who did nothing to create this mess but who are paying dearly for it with their future. Any working class family one cares to pick has a son, daughter or cousin in London, Sydney, Toronto or New York. Every family has someone who is considering emigration while many have multiples. Whole communities and social groups have been decimated as we enter the seventh year of a policy of forced mass emigration of young people. I have family who have left Ireland to seek work in recent times and not for a holiday or the craic as some spin doctors would have it.

Today we witnessed thousands of old people outside Leinster House who clearly have had enough of the cuts by stealth. They are not being fooled. The incremental erosion of benefits over the years has forced the elderly to fight back. We should remember what happened to Fianna Fáil the last time the grey vote reacted. The lives and well-being of the elderly are under serious threat. The cutting of thousands of medical cards is a crime. That is what these cutbacks mean. The extra costs for prescriptions will surely see people go without as people are forgoing critical medicine due to these costs. The telephone line is a vital part of security for the elderly and a necessity as a direct line to vital services, which can be a matter of life or death. With the cuts to the fuel allowance and the increase in the cost of living, the isolation of the elderly, in particular in rural areas, will have serious repercussions.

There has been constant confusion over the past year in regard to medical cards, and many cases have defied imagination as to why they were refused. A debacle is about to unfold. A further 35,000 medical cards will be cut. My constituency has been inundated with medical card refusals over the past year. We were told the over 70s were entitled to a medical card. We now have new thresholds and further means testing. Inevitably, huge trauma and pressure will be placed on a vulnerable section of our community.

Some of the criteria laid down and the illnesses which qualify and which do not are difficult to understand. I cannot believe some of the cases I have seen which have been refused a medical card. I have met many people over the past year who have been refused medical cards. People who could not even walk and were bent over were refused. We will now add to that by requiring people to fill out forms and by leaving people waiting for medical cards and not knowing what will happen with these new thresholds. The dead are not even safe. The bereavement grant has disappeared so one is not even safe when dead.

It is true to say that the Labour Party is the bones on which Fine Gael sharpens its teeth. How did the Labour Party support these measures? What impact statement did it request? Has it any idea of the problems this will create? It is out of touch and has lost the plot, which the people are telling it. It would want to wake up. What is happening is a catastrophe for the people.

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