Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

While the Deputy would like to rewrite history, had the Government implemented the programme that Fianna Fáil agreed with the troika, as part of the previous Administration the Deputy personally would be spending €1.5 billion less on social welfare this year. One can work out what that would mean for pensioners, for those dependent on social welfare provision and for the unemployed. I note that in the budgetary projects Fianna Fáil set out, it sought to crucify the unemployed. Consequently, I will take no lessons with regard to what the Government has done. The Government has done what it needed to do to balance the budget but did so in the most fair and humane way possible. It has protected basic social welfare payments. I would have liked to have admitted no cuts at all and certainly from my perspective, as I have stated in every budget speech, I take no pleasure in reducing public expenditure in areas on which I would like to spend more. However, I cannot spend money I do not have. While Members can continue to fight the election, it is over and they should now talk reality because the people want a future. They wish to know that the hard and difficult decisions they have endured will bring them a brighter future and not to have the illusion that all can be washed or wiped away in a return to phoney economics, as implemented in the dying days of the previous Administration.

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