Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is difficult to analyse something such as this motion, or the Minister of State's counter-motion as it is accurately called, in five minutes. I can only skim the surface of it.

Since the economic crash, we have been looking at the ghosts of freshly painted shops and businesses have been turning green with moss because their former owners have had to abandon them. Local sports fields are silent because the younger generation who should be playing football, hurling or other games on them are now leaving or have left for lives on other shores. Meanwhile, those left behind are burdened with the loss of services and, in many cases, the loss of community institutions. Local businesses are locked in to upward-only rents, unsustainable rates and water rates and are unable to access sufficient credit from the banks. They have closed and are still closing during this continuing era of austerity. Three weeks ago, five businesses closed in Sligo. This did not make the headlines. They were small businesses, with at most eight employees in each of them, but it has shattered the lives of those people.

The Government speaks about green shoots. The green shoots are cold comfort. Those businesses could not cling on long enough for the Government to deliver on the promises it is making. Those businesses and the people who have lost their jobs look on what the Government is saying about green shoots as election waffle. They could not and cannot hold on any longer.

The level of housing stock is a disgrace. It is ironic that a housing boom caused many of the problems and that we now cannot provide a roof over the heads of people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. This will stunt not just this generation, but future generations, yet what do we get? We get a report with more promises that we are not to worry because the Government will look after it all.

If the Minister of State were to come with me to any hospital tonight, she would see people who are badly in need of medical care lying on trolleys. Children with disabilities have had medical cards taken from them. Promises were made that they would be returned but in many cases they were not. Domiciliary care allowances were whipped off people and they were left with fights on their hands to get even a little of the allowance back. This is what we have been left with in the post-Celtic tiger era. We are left with hopelessness and promises from a Government which wants to get re-elected.

It is not the fault of our hospital or our health care staff. It is not the fault of the home helps who have been told to cut back on a person's home help hours by ten minutes because they now need to call to another two people within the same amount of hours. They want to do the right thing by that person and by everyone else, but their regulators are the ones who comply with Government directions and tell the home help to cut back on the service to people by ten minutes. The health services are in a critical condition because they have been subjected to death by a thousand cuts. They are in a critical condition, yet we are expected to applause when a Minister announces that there will be no further cuts.

Instead of providing jobs for young people, we provide a scheme which uses them as free labour. JobBridge has been abused by companies attempting to piggyback on a regressive Government policy and unscrupulous employers are using it for their own ends. Instead of providing work for our thousands of young people abroad so that they might come back, the Government is creating a system in which young workers will effectively work for free. It is every rogue employer's wish coming to pass.

We have lost more than our economic sovereignty. Regulation and rules now replace discretion, compassion and decency in the way we treat our most vulnerable citizens. Can we at least stop adding insult to the agony by boasting of illusory green shoots?

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