Results 20,001-20,020 of 21,280 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Government parties have taken the baton from the last Government and have continued its disastrous course and no amount of rhetoric can disguise that fact.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: Today is a sad day for this State. It is a sad day for those families who waited anxiously to hear what the Minister had to say and who will be obliged to cope with the realities of it. It is a sad day for the economy. The Government has chosen to compound a crisis by following a policy set down by its predecessors in Fianna Fáil, a policy that has failed. It is also a sad day for the...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: Today, the Labour Party is exposed. It is exposed as a party which will state and do anything to get into and stay in power.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: Let me remind its members of some of its promises to the people before the last general election. On child benefit, it stated: "[We believe] children should not be made to pay for the current economic crisis. Labour will not cut child benefit." Bravo. On welfare cuts, it stated: "Fianna Fáil is making the poorest in our society pay for its disastrous mismanagement of the economy. It...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: On education, it stated it "is committed to universal education from pre-school to third level because we believe that everyone - regardless of their background or their family's income - should have an equal chance ...".

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: I could go on. The Labour Party made these statements knowing full well the state of the public finances. There was no great revelation when its members walked into Government Buildings; the only revelation was for the public when it became clear that they were ripping up all of their pre-election promises and continuing the Fianna Fáil Party policies they had derided. It was out with "no...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: The unemployment figures, the haemorrhage of emigration, the collapsed domestic economy and the misery facing struggling families all stand as testimony to a failed policy, a damning indictment of the "bailout for the banks and cuts for the people" policy the Labour Party now so warmly embraces. The burden of private bank debt must be lifted from the shoulders of citizens. It is not our...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: The budget deficit must be reduced, which is a given. There is no easy way out of this crisis. There are no soft options available-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----but there are choices to be made. The Labour Party persists with the brazen lie that it has no option-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----but to target low and middle income families and cut back on vital public services. The truth is it does have choices but it has chosen to ruthlessly target men, women and children across the State who are already struggling following years of cuts.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Mary Lou McDonald: It has betrayed every single one of them. The eagerness with which the party is pursuing its new cuts agenda is deeply shocking. So proud is the Minister, Deputy Howlin, of the pain and misery he is to impose on citizens that he has abandoned budget tradition and demanded a day all to himself in order that he can set out over €2 billion worth of cuts. What is he thinking? It beggars...

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.