Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The favourite tactic of the Taoiseach is to demonise his opponents and attack them because he does not have the substance of a decent response or the capacity to respond to the hard fact that he has just reduced young people’s income on the dole. Please, will he call it this and not anything else? Will he not dress it up as something to do with job activation when it patently has nothing to do with this? If he was more honest and upfront with people about the decisions the Government has made, he might get more respect. Will the social policy committee meet more frequently to give a stronger social dimension to the budget proposals that have been emerging and ensure the next budget will not be as regressive and unfair as the past three have been? Everyone involved in the social policy area, including the ESRI, has said the past three budgets have been regressive and unfair.

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