Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, when the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform were making their statements, they were listened to by the Opposition. However, when it came to the spokespersons for the Opposition parties responding, both Ministers were absent from the Chamber. Bhí siad as láthair gan meas ar bith. Bhí an Taoiseach ansin ach arís gan meas ar bith. When Deputies Pearse Doherty and Mary Lou McDonald were responding for Sinn Féin, the Taoiseach heckled continuously. Rather than behave like a Taoiseach, Teachta Kenny behaved like a delinquent or a character out of "Father Ted" - I am thinking of Father Dougal or perhaps even Father Jack - shouting and gesturing at the Sinn Féin speakers. It struck me as rather odd, on such a significant day, that the leader of the Government was far from being composed or confident, and I asked myself why. After all, yesterday's budget was hailed as the ending of austerity and the launch of the new recovery. The Taoiseach’s lack of composure was evident also in how he handled the McNulty affair and other issues. Yesterday, in my view, it was because he knows this budget does not live up to the Government spin. The Taoiseach knows the Government had the opportunity to lift the burden from long-suffering citizens. Instead, it brought in a short-term, two-tier budget.

The Government had the ability to get rid of the water charges and the family home tax and to take the remaining 210,000 lowest paid workers out of the tax net but decided not to do this. Instead of giving more to those who have less, the Government gives more to those who have more and less to those who have less. There is no equality, no inclusivity and no fairness. That is the limit of the vision of this bad and incompetent Government.

It is possible to measure the standards of a society by the way it treats the disadvantaged, the poor, senior citizens, children and citizens with disabilities. It has always been my view, which I think is universally shared, that any party's view of the economy is based on its core political values. If it is for privatisation and a market led-economic policy and if it does not believe in the right to public services, it will have a particular view. If its view is every man or woman for themselves, that will be represented in its economic policy. That is the view best represented by this Government's austerity policies. However, if it believes in a real republic; in a citizen-centred, rights-based society; in equality - now that is a strange word - and in the right to a home, universal health services, a job, access to education and freedom, that will also shape its economic policy. That is the ground that Sinn Féin stands on.

In my experience, the majority of citizens always want to play their part. The majority of people respond positively to positive leadership. This is the same in terms of getting the economy moving forward and dealing with the debt. The problem thinking people have is the absence of any notion or degree of fairness or equality in the approach adopted by this and the previous Fianna Fáil-led Government and the huge gap between the rhetoric and the substance of what they do. In Fine Gael's famous, or infamous,"5 Point Plan" document, which I rarely hear the Taoiseach reference, it said:

Fine Gael believes passionately that Ireland needs a new start. That the only way to save our country is to change it. Fine Gael wants to do more than rebuild Ireland. We want to transform it. To create from the ashes of the old, a New Ireland that is better, stronger and fairer.

This is rhetoric without substance. Since 2011, Fine Gael and Labour have attacked the welfare of our citizens from the cradle to the grave as they demolished the most basic social protections. In a series of brutal austerity budgets, they imposed a range of cuts and taxes that amounted to a direct attack on low and middle-income households. Tá na beartais seo in éadan na daoine atá tinn, seandaoine agus daoine óga.The Government followed the path laid out for it by its Fianna Fáil predecessors and it hid behind the troika at every turn as an excuse for what it was doing.

The failure of the Government to deal with retrospective bank capitalisation has locked future generations of Irish citizens into debt and placed an unsustainable burden on the economy. The Government does not need me to remind it that servicing the debt will cost the taxpayer €8 billion this year. Fine Gael and Labour have not governed in the interests of Irish citizens, They have not governed in the common good. Instead, they have been guided by the destructive, anti-social ideology of austerity and by their own perceived narrow party political interests. Simply put, they have put ideology and electoralism before the common good with the inevitable disastrous consequences.

Austerity is a bad policy choice. It is bad for the economy and it does not work, although it depends on what one wants the economy to do. If one wants to the economy to be a servant of the people as opposed to the people being slaves to the economy, of course, that is something else entirely. It is also bad for society. It is bad for us as people and for our communities. It has slowed down the rate of recovery. It has led to the dismantling of public services. It has inflicted further unnecessary damage on this State's shambolic health system. It has decimated rural communities, which the Taoiseach is bound to know. Small, indigenous businesses, which remain the largest employer in this State, are being allowed to collapse. Tá na pobail bheaga ar fud an Stáit scriosta, go háirithe muintir na tuaithe. I see the damage in my own constituency of Louth which has suffered as a result of unemployment, emigration and partition and where mortgage debt and homelessness are major issues. The public services, in particular the health and ambulance services, are staffed by really good people who are struggling to meet demands. In the mean time, schools, post offices and Garda stations are closing at an alarming rate or are underfunded. The Government's commitment to austerity has pushed more and more people into poverty and severe financial hardship with the attendant social ills of increased mental health problems and an accelerated suicide rate.

I had the Government bench's attention for almost eight minutes and then I lost it. Is that not interesting?

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