Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I did not make that mistake now.

I am sorry that the acting Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, has left the Chamber. I listened with a sense of frustration to his assertion that nobody in the Chamber had a monopoly of compassion. Whatever he might have meant by that comment, it translates to an assumption that we are here to serve the interests of citizens not on the basis of equality, justice, decency or rights but on the basis of compassion. I represent a working class community and, frankly, they do not want the compassion of the acting Minister, the members of Fine Gael or any other Member elected to this House. What they want is a fair chance and to live in a decent society. They do not believe, as the acting Minister asserted, that anybody owes them a living. That is the most common slur cast against the working class in society, people who have stumbled on hard times and who rely on decent thresholds of social decency in society - the assertion that they believe somebody owes them a living. What we owe ourselves and each other is to be honest. We owe it to the citizens of the State to be straight with them and we owe it ourselves and the generations to come to construct not just a dynamic economy that benefits those at the top but also a fair and sustainable economy that benefits all of us in terms of access to decent work, not JobBridge schemes, and decent services and, finally, to address the appalling vista of all of the usual things to which the acting Minister referred. He appeared to take umbrage at Deputy Seamus Healy and said he was trotting out the same old things. I am sorry if it bores him, if the facts of life bore him or if repetition of the fact that almost 90,000 families are in mortgage arrears is dull.

There is also the fact 1.3 million of our people experience deprivation and that in this jurisdiction, supposedly the fastest growing economy in Europe, we now have the third highest deprivation rate, at 25%, for children age nought to six years. I am sorry if this is dull and if it irritates elements in the Chamber because people keep presenting the nuisance of repeating these things but they are worthy of repetition because this is what is happening.

Shiny documents aside, if any government or administration cannot face up to these challenges and admit to them or address them, then all of the shiny documents in the world are not worth the paper on which they are written. The fact the shiny document, it seems, is not amenable to amendment from those of us on the opposition benches tells its own story and raises a not surprising question mark in respect of any real commitment to Dáil reform but I am not hugely surprised by this.

Earlier, my colleague, Deputy Doherty, referred to young Irish women between the ages of 15 and 19, who have the highest rate of suicide in the European Union. We can add to this young Irish men between the same ages, who have the second highest rate of suicide in the European Union. If one wishes a measure of where we are at, this is it. The great tragedy and difficulty is that with the active assistance of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and others, the State has been signed up to a fiscal regime and fiscal rules which act, effectively, as a straitjacket in respect of the spending decisions we can make. I am not talking about wild irresponsible spending which may have been characteristic of other parties in the past. I am speaking about responsible economic and social investment.

We have the shiny document. We have had it for only a short while and, of course, the length of time to debate it is entirely inadequate. I want the Minister, Deputy Bruton, and his colleagues to know their compassion is not what is required. What is required is their cop-on, decency and understanding that people have rights and are not reliant on the compassion of their hearts.

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