Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In 2014 the Government also took the medical card from thousands of people over 70 years of age. It increased the prescription charges to €25 per month. It cut funding to the elderly under the fair deal scheme, and to the acute hospitals, resulting in many hospitals, the latest being Beaumont, having to close the doors of their accident and emergency departments to the general public. It gave Irish Water a blank cheque. We will not support the Government’s expenditure choices this year.

The Government does not poverty-proof or gender-proof its spending plans. Many of the cuts I highlighted today are hitting women and children the hardest. The Government does not family-proof its spending plans. It presides over regressive budgets which hit the vulnerable and the weakest hardest. It is creating a divided society, social exclusion and inequality. In 2014 taxes are €1.1 billion ahead of target. Therefore, some of these choices did not need to be made. They were cruel and should not have happened. They display a Government that has no interest in fairness and should not be supported. It says it is spending €42 billion but does it think of the effects of that €42 billion? Its biggest cuts affect those who can least afford it. That is the essence of the Appropriation Bill, to give statutory approval to the expenditure which went through here by way of Estimates and Supplementary Estimates, many of which we criticised. We told the Government on budget day 2013 that its budget was flawed, that it lacked fairness, that it was regressive and would hit the most vulnerable the hardest but the Government ignored us and ploughed ahead with its expenditure cuts because it is more interested in looking after the wealthy. This Government is simply interested in making the most vulnerable take the hardest cuts. It reflects a core in this Government that is out of touch with the people.

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