Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In February 2001 it claimed we did not need a bailout only for Deputy Pearse Doherty to call for a second bailout in June 2011. Both claims were factually inaccurate. Its great solution to our revenue gap was a wealth tax, which it proposed in three budget submissions. It originally claimed that such a tax would bring in €800 million but later it put its hands up to admit it did not know how much revenue it would earn. We did the right thing for the country by introducing budgets that were difficult but as fair as we could make them. Sinn Féin accused us of taking money out of the economy even though all of its own budget proposals would have taken money out of the economy. If we are an austerity Government, there is also an austerity Opposition because it believes in exactly the same debt ratios, deficit targets and structural adjustments. It introduced glossy budget statements in 2012, 2013 and 2014 but €1.5 billion of the tax increases proposed in them were exactly the same, as were €600 million in spending adjustments. We got copy and paste budgets over a three year period while the State was trying to balance the books. That does not work.

My party has been criticised for saying things at the last election but Sinn Féin's manifesto in 2011 promised to reverse all the cuts. It has not introduced a single budget document or proposal on reducing or reversing all of the cuts. Deputy Adams recently stated that it would cost €8 million to reverse water charges and the property tax when every dog in the streets knows it will cost over €1 billion. Just yesterday, Deputy McDonald revealed that she did not know where her party would find the money to pay for water.

We have to be realistic about what is happening in this country, and devise proper policies. There are people who live in a world of opportunism and there are those who sit on this side of the House and make decisions. With unemployment down from 15% to nearly 10% and growth at the highest rate in the European Union, we are finally seeing taxes decreasing and incomes increasing. I think we know who rolled their sleeves up to do the right thing instead of exploiting people's fears and worries.

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