Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know that the Government does not like what I am saying, which is why Government Deputies are heckling and trying to drown out what I am saying. Both Ministers were afforded a lot of respect by the Opposition, but Government Deputies are not affording us the same respect.

The economic upturn has happened very quickly. Last year there was hardly any economic growth and the situation was the same the previous year; therefore, we make no apologies for urging a degree of caution. In our view, it is time to take a deep breath, secure the recovery, assess the real risks, particularly external risks, that the country still faces and address gaps in vital public services which have opened up in recent years. If there are spare resources, they need to be targeted at those who really need them and those who have borne the brunt of budget cutbacks in recent times. Up to a few weeks ago the Government was predicting modest growth of 2% this year. Now a raft of positive economic data which was not foreseen by the Government either have emerged in very quick succession, which has resulted in the prediction that the economy will grow by about 5%. In our view, we will be in a much better position and have a much clearer set of data in about 12 months time on the real state of the economy, the public finances and the international outlook. I think the Minister for Finance knows this, but, of course, the imperatives of electoral politics have kicked in or, as one anonymous Minister put it in a weekend newspaper, "we may not get another budget." In other words, this is the budget in which to spend the money to try to save as many seats as possible.

We in Fianna Fáil are taking a different approach. For the first time in decades, because the Government did not do so in opposition, there is an Opposition party that is prepared to stand back and show the courage to advocate responsible rather than popular politics which the Government is promoting. In opposition Fine Gael and the Labour Party were cheerleaders for cutting taxes and raising spending. In fact, they were insatiable in their demands during the Celtic tiger years. Fianna Fáil has learned from the mistakes of the past, but the Government is about to repeat them. Auction politics was wrong in the past and it is wrong now. We need to accept that the country still faces key risks, many of them external, as Isaid. The eurozone economy is flagging, as the Minister well knows. The economic indicators in Germany are deteriorating rapidly. France is seeking two further years to bring its deficit into line, while serious problems are resurfacing in Greece. The historic low borrowing interest rates enjoyed by the State will not last indefinitely. The world growth forecast has been downgraded and regional conflicts always have the capacity to cause economic instability. Ireland is a small open economy which relies heavily on external trade. More than most we are at the mercy of external factors, but this does not seem to have figured too much in the Government's considerations. That is why the recovery should have been allowed to take its first breath before starting to give away the money, which the Minister is borrowing to do.

We know some things about the recovery. It has not spread right around the country. For many, the word "recovery" is absolutely meaningless. If a person has a child with special needs awaiting an assessment of needs or seeking access to speech and language or occupational therapy services, there is no recovery for them. If an elderly person cannot afford to pay for private health insurance and are awaiting a knee operation, there is absolutely no recovery for him or her. If a person has a loved one who is waiting to gain access to a nursing home, who is waiting four months for funding under the fair deal scheme and hanging on by his or her fingertips at home with threadbare support from the State, there is no recovery for him or her. If a person is homeless and sleeping not 200 yards from the gates of Leinster House, there is no absolutely recovery for him or her.

There are bigger questions to answer. What are we about as a people? For what do we really stand? What are our priorities? People look to the Taoiseach for a vision. Anyone listening to him in the past few months would have said his vision was to cut the marginal rate of tax, which would benefit one in six income earners. A consultant orthopaedic surgeon went on "Liveline" last week and said all seven operating theatres in the National Orthopaedic Hospital were closed because the HSE could not afford to fund hip replacement operations. Is that the country in which we are living today and all the while, waiting lists spiral and the Government's top priority is to cut the marginal rate of tax? It says a lot about the choices the Government has made and in time the people will see through these choices because they have an innate decency which we saw in the medical cards fiasco in the past couple of years. We even saw it in the people who were not affected by what the Government had done - the unintended consequence of including €113 million in its budget for medical card savings, which resulted in people losing medical cards, which the Government stated was never meant to happen. Even though they were not affected, it hit people hard and that is what they will see in the choices the Government has made.

That is why we as a party have stated extra resources should be made available in areas in which a real difference can be made at this time. Among others, they include improving access to child care, particularly for those looking to access work; building on the free preschool year introduced by Fianna Fáil; reducing class sizes for children which we know results in better educational outcomes and which is the best long-term investment we can make in the country and the economy; prioritising the issues of mental health and suicide awareness; looking after vulnerable people who are older and need supports; and increasing mortgage interest relief for those who are drowning under the burden imposed by high mortgages, particularly those on variable interest rates. Deputy Seán Fleming will speak about a number of these areas in more detail.

A few weeks ago the Minister gave the Government all the credit for the recovery. The truth is that apportioning credit for a recovery that most people do not see is of little consequence. It says more about the insecurity of the Government than anything else. The economic progress which has been made can be attributed to a number of factors, not least of which is the reduction in the budget deficit - a process which, as the Minister well knows, started back in 2008. It is a fact he may not welcome, but it is a fact nonetheless that in government Fianna Fáil and the Minister's predecessor, the late Brian Lenihan, introduced two thirds of the budget adjustment that has been central to our recovery. Above all else, the sacrifices of the people have brought us to the point where there is clear light at the end of the tunnel, to which the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform alluded.

As we know, in recent times the Government tried to dampen down the very expectations it had built up in respect of income tax. If one looks through the budget booklet which gives examples of Joe and Mary, Michael and Teresa to show how they will be affected by the budget, one will see that there is one very obvious omission.

When the Christmas tree is still standing in the corner of the sitting room, the first bill for water charges will arrive through the door. The Minister will claim that is not a budgetary matter but the reality for people watching at home is that it is a budgetary issue.

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