Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil would have impoverished people. We did not do that and this Government took a consolidated and uniform view on the matter.

The Deputy referred to education and skills, the increase in respect of which over the period was €900 million. This was primarily due to the national training fund and FÁS transferring to the Vote in 2011. He will be aware that €500 million of the reduction in the health Vote for this year relates to the fact that we created the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and a new Child and Family Agency. The money in question has been transferred to the aforementioned Department.

Regardless of whatever Machiavellian construction the Deputy, for his own base reasons, wants to put on the figures, there is no doubt that we have taken the broken economy bequeathed to us after his party's sojourn in government and sought to fix it. By the time the 2011 general election took place, the then Government was barely constitutional because it contained only six or seven extant members. We have rebuilt public confidence in our capacity to turn our own affairs, exited the bailout into which Fianna Fáil placed us and maintained social spending at a decent rate.

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