Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

Gabh mo leithscéal. It is an example. The Government has taxed the old, the poor and the disabled and it has decimated rural Ireland. Agriculture has been killed off and in return we have silence from the Members on the Government side. The 1% income levy has had the great affect of bringing people on low pay into the tax net. The Minister of State referred to emancipation, which means freedom. Is the Minister of State's definition of "patriotism" taxing the elderly, bringing the low paid into the tax net, increasing class sizes, increasing the cost of secondary school annual bus tickets, abolishing medical cards for the over 70s, increasing college registration and denying education to people and halving child benefit for over 18s? I hope not but that is what the Government is saying.