Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was interesting to read this morning that the first reaction of Fine Gael Ministers to the damning report of the Fiscal Advisory Council was to have a discussion about how to attack the Opposition. This confirms yet again that the only form of defence the Government has is to attack the Opposition for the Government's own failures. That is an approach which has long stopped being listened to by the public. The extent to which the Taoiseach and his Ministers co-ordinated message points for attacking everyone and accepting zero responsibility for anything was striking. It seems accountability is for the little people and not for those in office.

We all know that by far the most expensive policy demand of any party in recent times has been one made by the Taoiseach, which is tax cuts weighted towards higher earners. He has used his party conferences twice to call for €3 billion in one single tax promise. There is a €3 billion commitment on broadband, notwithstanding the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's opposition who said it did not represent value for money and was way above the original estimate.

There is the €2 billion, and now likely to exceed €2 billion, cost of the national children's hospital, which will go way above the original estimate. There are also all the promises made in the past month to six weeks. The Taoiseach literally threw the kitchen sink at the local and European elections in terms of expenditure commitments and promises, yet he still insists, as he did yesterday and today, that the problem is the Opposition seeking, for example, better conditions to stop the haemorrhaging of the Defence Forces or honest health budgets. Equally, the Opposition is to blame for the Government's chronic failure to deliver projects within budget. Given the scale of what the Fiscal Advisory Council has said and what the Minister for Finance said recently, is it still the Taoiseach's belief that €3 billion in cuts to the tax base should be prioritised in the next two years?

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