Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

From time to time, a Government will make a decision so cruel and wrong that it will be remembered for many years to come. The decision of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government and its Minister for Finance, Ernest Blythe, to cut a shilling from the old age pension in the 1920s was one such decision. Another was the attempt by a Fine Gael-led Government and its Minister for Finance, John Bruton, to put VAT on the shoes of little children back in the 1980s. No one can foresee the future but I strongly suspect that the decision to end the ban on evictions at a time when 3,000 notices to quit are outstanding and more than half the local authorities in the State have no emergency accommodation to spare will be remembered with disgust for years to come. This is a shameful decision by a shameless Government. The shameful decision must be reversed and the shameless Government must be shown the door. The French say that what the parliament does, the streets can undo. I hope the streets can undo this decision. I urge people to protest in Cork this Saturday and in Dublin and around the country on 1 April.

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