Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Neither has the Taoiseach made specific provision for discretionary medical cards. After all the hardship visited on those coping with serious illnesses and disabilities, including children who had their medical cards taken from them, it is incredible that the Taoiseach has not made explicit provision to guarantee that this sorry saga will not play out again.

The Taoiseach could have extended the BreastCheck programme to women aged 65 to 69 years. Not so long ago, the Minister for Health received a petition from such women on this very topic. It would have cost €2.9 million - a small investment in the health of this cohort of women.

Of all the cuts the Taoiseach has introduced during his term of office, the cut to the respite care grant was especially mean-spirited. It showed a complete disregard for carers and the invaluable service they rendered to their loved ones and the State. That cut should have been reversed today. Shame on the Government for not doing so.

Lone parents should also have been given a greater break in this budget. Of all groups in society, those families headed by a lone parent have been hardest hit by the austerity programme, yet the Taoiseach has delivered precious little for them.

The Taoiseach has done nothing today to address excessive pay levels in the public sector among the small cohort at the top who are paid too much. This is probably no great surprise, but it reillustrates the favour extended to the privileged few.

The budget does nothing in respect of the pay of the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, Ministers or special advisers, all of whom remain overpaid. It is a great pity that, once again, the Taoiseach has missed an opportunity to deal with this issue which I have no doubt adds to people's general cynicism about politics and politicians.

The Taoiseach has finally woken up to the fact that we are in the grips of a housing crisis. The homelessness and rough sleeping figures are truly scandalous, as is the fact that almost 90,000 households are on local authority housing lists, many of them for many years. Added to this are the 74, 000 families in receipt of rent allowance. The State’s failure to provide housing for these families is costly in human and financial terms. It costs €30 million annually in providing emergency accommodation and nearly €500 million in subsidised private rent payments. This cannot continue. Sinn Féin has argued for an investment of €1 billion from the strategic investment fund to kick-start the response to this crisis. This could provide 6,600 social housing units in the next 18 months, unlike the Government's plans which are significantly less ambitious. They fall well short of what is required to adequately address the lack of social housing supply. Why does the Taoiseach remain so timid in the face of such a crisis? Families are traipsing from one bed and breakfast establishment to another, as well as sleeping on sofas or in cars. That is the reality in 2014 in Ireland. There is no end to austerity and hardship in view for these families.

Untold damage has been done by the Taoiseach's policies in his term in office. He has consigned people to long-term unemployment, the emigrant trail and the indignity of feeling like beggars when they seek basic services to which they or their loved ones are entitled. He may choose to deny or ignore this damage, but it is very real. He may clap himself on the back for an austerity job well done and may even be delusional enough to believe his vicious cutbacks have worked. He should know, however, that he presides over a country in which citizens continue to struggle for the basic necessities of life. Mothers and fathers are forced to choose between feeding their children and paying the rent. There are senior citizens who must choose between which prescription they can afford to fill and which they should set aside. For countless families, their young people are gone, forced to build their lives and find work far away from home. These are not measures of the Taoiseach's success but testimony of his abject failure. Today, he had a chance, in real terms, to start to repair and rebuild, but he has missed that opportunity.

At the beginning of this debate, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, in poetic mode, quoted Robert Frost. He talked about the road less travelled, but the path taken by the Taoiseach and the Government is the well trodden road of previous Governments. He has targeted in a cynical way those whom he believes to be soft targets.

This budget privileges those it believes to be in more powerful positions. It falls short even of crumbs from the rich man's table. Yet, it will argue that this represents something fair. Well, it does not. I need to tell you, Taoiseach, that people are very well aware of that fact. If anybody was fooled by you in 2011 let me tell you there are very few you are fooling now in 2014. If you take a message from this debate and have listened at all, let me repeat to you that if you were serious about giving a break-----

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