Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is not a public representative in this House or in the Seanad who has not sat in his or her constituency office in recent months and listened to horrific stories from the ordinary, decent, local people about what the cuts to services and allowances have done to them since the Government took office. This is not to say that they got off lightly under Fianna Fáil previously, a fact that they will not forget. Many of the people who have come to me in trouble due to the Government's austerity policies can remember as far back as the Fianna Fáil election campaign of 1987 when that party, under Charles Haughey, put up election posters all over this city and State that read: "Health cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped." Fianna Fáil claimed that there was a better way, but God knows it was not better under Fianna Fáil. Nor has it been better under this Government.

The older constituents have been hard hit by this budget. The nastiest cuts are the ones that make it more difficult for them to have telephones and the one that removes the bereavement grant under section 8 of the Bill. We as a people put great store in how we bury our dead. It is an important part of how we deal with the grief caused by the death of a loved one. It is a matter of love and pride for any family, widow or widower to know that a loved one was given a decent funeral. How cruel would one need to be to devise this cut? I would love to know who sat around a table and presented this proposal. Was it a member of the Cabinet or one of the gang or four?

The young did not escape either. In section 9, the Minister reinforces the call to our young people to emigrate by cutting their jobseeker's payments, encouraging them to go. Despite the denials by many of the Minister's party colleagues and backbenchers that there were no cuts to jobseeker's payments, Deputy Feighan congratulated her 15 or 20 minutes ago on her decision to cut them.

It is disturbing that the Department of Social Protection is actively encouraging people to emigrate. We in Sinn Féin have always suspected that the Government's main tool to reduce unemployment figures was emigration. The letters that have been sent out in recent days prove this. I have a letter from the Department. It refers to a vacancy, a vacancy number and employer details. According to it, the Department had been advised of a vacancy that might have been of interest to the person concerned. The location was in Canada, with salaries and conditions to be advised. This is what the Department under Deputy Burton's Ministry and this Government is sending to people across the country. A young man in Tralee received two letters from the Department on the same day informing him of a vacancy in Canada. The crazy aspect is that he has been in full-time employment since the start of the summer. Not only is the Government encouraging unemployed people to leave the country, but also employed people. The individual in question went through a State-sponsored training course for eight months with more than a dozen other people. It looks like we are training people for export like cattle.

Given the recent budget reductions in respect of young unemployed people, the use of schemes such as JobBridge, which is clearly being exploited for cheap labour, and now this, it is clear that the Government is trying to make this country a cold house for young people.

I travel all over the west and south coasts and am very much involved in the GAA. In every single rural area that I visit, youth clubs are finding it difficult to field teams because young people have been forced out of the country to Canada, Australia, America and England to find employment. Nor is it just young people. Due to drastic cuts and restrictions, people who are employed are also being forced to leave the country. The only way the Government can manipulate the figures is by forcing young people away. For this reason, Deputy Feighan congratulated the Minister on doing a good job by cutting jobseeker's payments. She should be ashamed of herself.

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