Results 1,241-1,260 of 21,404 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: There is a revolutionary thought. It can come about by way of the elimination of waste in spending-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----and, most importantly, by way of growth.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: We cannot fix the public finances until we tackle unemployment, as the Minister has acknowledged. However, he is not striking the right balance with this budget. There is no easy way out of the crisis, but there is a fair way, which is to tax wealth.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: It is not fair to cut welfare payments, as the Minister has done today; to make education the preserve of the elite, as he is on course to do with his announcement today; to attack family living standards or to make health care a privilege.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: These are the things the Minister claimed he would not do-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----but today he has. These are his political choices. He has made other choices, too. In the last ten months he has chosen to protect those on sky high wages and in receipt of pension pay-outs in the public sector. He has repeatedly broken his own pay ceilings for ministerial advisers, on 14 occasions in all. Yesterday's newspapers were full of stories on the Taoiseach insisting on a...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: Mr. John Bruton takes home €138,502, while a former Tánaiste and colleague of the Minister, Dick Spring, enjoys a whopping annual pension of €119,420.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: There is no chance of the Minister giving them-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----the "times are tough" pep talk.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: Has the Minister told them the State is insolvent, or has this fact slipped their attention?

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Minister has failed to address runaway pay levels at the top of the public and Civil Service. The Taoiseach is on a salary of €200,000; the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, who has left the Chamber, is on a salary of €185,000, while the Minister and his ministerial colleagues are on a salary of €169,000.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: The truth is that none of these salaries can be defended.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: Last week, the Government set out in law bumper salaries for members of the Judiciary and the political class; this week it takes the knife to low incomes-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----young people in receipt of disability allowances and the entitlement of part-time workers to jobseeker's allowance. That is what it chooses to do, but it could do things differently. It could protect the living standards and spending power of families already struggling with their bills. It could ask high earners, at this time of crisis, to shoulder the burden. It could cap public...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----but it chooses not to do this because it is not really up to making the tough choices.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: There is no economic or moral argument for making €475 million worth of cuts to the social welfare budget, cuts of the most dishonest kind. The Minister has said he has not cut social welfare payments. The payments to one parent families are to be cut by €122 million. The disability allowance is to be discontinued for 16 and 17 year olds and cut to €100 for young people between the...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: It may seem to the Minister that the cuts are marginal, but if one is already at the pin of one's collar, losing any amount from one's weekly payment can make the difference between being warm and cold and light and darkness, but he knows all of this already. He knows that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has been inundated with requests for help since last year. What is more, the...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----because every cent paid in social welfare gets consumed in the real economy. There are no savings. This withdrawal of cash from the economy will mean more job losses, more contraction and the vicious cycle will continue. This applies to all the cuts implemented today. The way to reduce the social welfare bill is to get people back to work.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Minister has chosen to sign up to the cutback and austerity agenda and in so doing he ensures economic contraction and job losses, and this will mean an increase in social welfare demand. It is hard to fathom that he cannot join these dots and recognise the consequences of the policy he is pursuing. He had no difficulty understanding them from the Opposition benches. For all his talk...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: The cuts in capital expenditure will cost jobs. If the Minister was serious about getting people back to work he would ramp up investment in infrastructure.