Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the reversal to the cuts to the pandemic unemployment payment and the wage subsidy scheme which Sinn Féin had been seeking.

On behalf of my constituents in north Kildare, I am raising overarching concerns about the Government's financial priorities in this tricky time ahead. Covid-19 leaves the world in uncharted waters. I am worried that with this Government it is the poor and the barely hanging on who will be cast adrift first. I am especially worried because these are people who do not have an in with the Government. They have no personal access, no pull, nothing to be shared with them. Over the past several months, people have seen clearly how the Government operates. In deciding when to open up after the initial lockdown, it put the desires of lobbyists and party public relations over the public interest and public health. It ignored the Chief Medical Officer's advice and then the Tánaiste went on to disparage that advice on national television.

Now we are back in lockdown, this time for a longer period. Small businesses and ordinary people are paying the price. This Government continues to operate on the basis of access and entitlement for the favoured few, starting with its own members, over the needs of the public. Unless one of the favoured few falls foul of the Government there is no bargepole long enough to put distance between them, as we all witnessed last night in the Dáil.

The Government has had a Damascene conversion to mental health. Mental health features heavily in almost all the calls to my office on housing, debt and other financial matters. All I hear about is people on the edge, who cannot cope, who are on medication for depression or are worried about their children. In light of the Minister's financial priorities I am worried for all of them. Cuts and charges are to be inflicted on those to who can bear them the least. I refer for example to carbon taxes. There is enough here to keep people awake at night, but apparently not the people in the Dáil. What will this Bill do to protect and rescue these people, like Fianna Fáil rescued Fine Gael last night? We hear that Fine Gael's party leader always delivers. Will the Minister follow suit and deliver for the outsiders in my constituency of Kildare North?

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