Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I did not open my mouth when the Ministers had 45 minutes to give their addresses. I have only started and, again, they are bickering, sniping and all the rest because the truth is sometimes hard to swallow. I understand their big day is not going down as well as it was planned in the strategy rooms of Labour and Fine Gael.

The truth is that the Government has shifted the tax burden on to low and middle-income families, families who are struggling. Sinn Féin has a positive vision for this society and economy. We would get rid of bad and unfair austerity taxes like water charges and the family home tax. The most radical action we would take is to keep our promises. Nobody likes paying tax but we are not afraid of saying that those who can should pay some more. We think it is right to tax those individuals earning over €100,000, particularly when the top 1% owns 12% of the wealth of the State. We also think promising a tax cut and a pay rise for the Taoiseach and other politicians on the same day that 368 people are lying on trolleys in our hospitals is wrong.

The whole set-up today is based on dishonesty. The dishonest notion this Government has a mandate is the principle one. It has long since lost the trust of the people. The other great dishonesty of the day is the notion that austerity worked. The third one is that we all made sacrifices. Let us be original and actually examine the facts. Let us judge it by the Government’s own predictions on coming to power. It has met none of the claims it made for itself on coming to office. In the stability programme update in April 2011, it stated the economy would grow by 8.7% from 2012 to 2014. In fact, the total growth over that time has been little more than half of that at 4.7%. This is because the Government’ policies slowed the economy and even caused a double-dip recession. Personal spending is still 7% below where it was at the beginning of 2008. It has not even recovered to the point it was at when Fine Gael and Labour took office in 2011.

Austerity has failed. Maybe not for all the friends of Fine Gael, including big donors in the past, as we have seen recently, but for the vast majority of people austerity has been a nightmare and a useless waste of years. We have seen falling incomes for most families. Many people in work find themselves poorer. Household incomes fell after this Government took office. Benefits have been cut - everything from support for single parents to respite care for carers. Austerity has ravaged our public services and has hollowed out public investment. Nearly all of our public services and public investment have been cut.

GDP growth has only benefited a few so far. This is because both Government policy and the recovery are only for the few. GDP growth, such as it is, is not being shared around, it is passing most people by. It is a one-sided recovery, benefiting only some parts and some people. Seven years after the economy reached a peak, it was still, at the end of 2014, more than 3% below that level. The economy is only convalescing and has not fully recovered. For most people it has not even got that far.

This is the truth behind the Government’s talk of recovery for the last number of years. The truth is that every downturn ends and every recession bottoms out. The question is did the Government policies of the time deepen, lengthen and inflict pain on citizens that they could have done without? The answer is clear from the facts. The Government caused a double-dip recession after it took office in 2011 and prolonged the crisis. The Government said the recovery is fair, but the growth in GDP is almost entirely from the overseas sector, net exports or net financial flows from overseas.

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