Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Do they really think the people are fooled by that? Do they really think that people are that stupid that they do not know that they are electioneering? Their miserly measures do not hide the cruelty of this Government, which chose to cut illness benefit and the treatment benefit scheme. It took measures like cutting the grants for hearing aids, mainly for elderly people. It took away the fuel allowance and household benefits packages. In the case of Labour the list of broken promises is long and painful. It has moved a long way from its Tesco promises and has betrayed the people most in need over the past four years.

Every cut means that something extra has to be paid for out of either low wages, pensions or social welfare payments. If one takes away, for example, the telephone allowance it amounts to a cut of €271 from the annual budget of people over 70. They can decide not to have a telephone or they can pay for it out of their pension. The Government gave them back €3 - so generous after cutting everything around them for the past number of years. The sham increase of €3 in the old age pension is so small and insignificant that it makes me wonder what was the thinking of the people who sat around the Cabinet table and came up with it, and of those who put the spin on it that it meant they were being generous to our older citizens. The sum €3 is shameful. It is disgraceful and an insult to our elderly who built this country.

The Government has cut basic social welfare payments again and again. Its press office keeps telling it to deny this, but it is true. During the worst of times of severe hardship when poor people needed help more than ever and felt the need of a safety net, the Government denied them that. It acts like there is no society, only the economy. That is what it has practised but what is the point of balancing the books when inequality has grown so much under this Government? The rich are getting richer and for the rich there is a recovery, but the gap is widening with the measures introduced by this Government.

There are nearly 400,000 people living in consistent poverty. There are some people who were working poor or just managing not to be poor but who have been thrown into destitution by this Government, some of them homeless now. Deputy Noel Harrington said we were one of the fairest and most equitable societies in Europe but he is clearly in a bubble, like the other Deputies present. They do not know what it is like in the real world. They do not know what it is like to go into a house and see poor people and children going hungry as a result of the Government's policies. It has betrayed the people who voted for it and its members will get their answer when they go back to their doors some time next year. They are hoping for a recovery but there is no recovery for people who betray the people they are supposed to represent.

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