Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish the new recruits well. I sympathise with the family of the unfortunate garda Tony Golden who lost his life in the course of duty this week and who will be buried tomorrow. Gardaí have to face such situations as part of their day-to-day work and the community must support An Garda Síochána. When are the new recruits going to have the training and the necessary expertise they will need? We are losing gardaí with experience in areas such as detective work, etc.

There has been no restoration of the household benefits package. There has been no restoration of the telephone allowance. These were mean, desperate cuts. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, said yesterday that the Labour Party had made two promises and kept them. It had made and broken 42. It told us that it would burn the bondholders and that it would be "Labour's way or Frankfurt's way". These were mealy-mouthed words from a party in opposition. Does its members think the people have forgotten? They have not.

There is to be no restoration of the bereavement grant. Two years ago the Government taxed the hearse and I said it would tax the shroud this year. It did not, but it nearly did and would do so because that is the kind of mean-spirited attitude it has. It is not the Labour Party I knew which was founded in my own town of Clonmel and included the former Ceann Comhairle, Seán Treacy, John Ryan from north Tipperary and Dan Spring. They were honest-to-goodness people who represented ordinary people, rather than getting into bed and being a mudguard for a Fine Gael-led Government which only looks after the rich. It was the high earners who gained from all of the tax cuts announced yesterday, not those on low or medium incomes. The former will receive some €900 or €1,000 a year, while the latter will only receive approximately €200 a year.

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