David Norris (Independent)

Yes, absolutely, but I do not welcome any Member of this disgraceful Government to this House. The Government has behaved barbarously in this and in many other areas. When I listen to people on that side of the House talking about protecting the vulnerable and the weak, I wonder how they dare to engage in such bare-faced hypocrisy, following the budget and the destruction of the Combat Poverty Agency and the Equality Authority. There are plenty of little voices over there that would like to speak out, and if the Green Party has guts, conscience or decency, this is the time for it to get out of this corrupt and discredited Government. I completely condemn it and no Minister will get a welcome from me in this House as long as the Government continues its savage attacks on the most vulnerable elements in our society, even stifling their voice. The Government is a disgrace and it is time it went.

There is a lot of hypocrisy over there. I listened to some of the debate here and heard the people on that side of the House whinging about being interrupted and then heckling, hectoring and cat-calling to this side. I am not Opposition, but Independent, and I believe I show it. I vote with the Government when it has decent policies. Yesterday in this House I commended the Government including the Green Party Minister of State on the manner in which they handled the pig crisis, but I will not stand for rubbish and hypocrisy. We are told about tough decisions and asked to support them. I would support any tough decisions if the Government really took them, but I will not support lies, evasion and hypocrisy. These decisions are not tough, they are just stupid.

If the Government thinks it can mask a stupid decision and describe it as tough, then it is very much mistaken and the Irish people certainly have it rumbled. The Government is asking, in effect, "What good is it to knock, knock, knock when we must be constructive?" Not much is constructive about what is happening here today in this Bill. I understand that perhaps it was foolish to have made these concessions, but it was the Government that did it, as a cynical vote-getting exercise. Now it is going to batter old people over the heads to get back a few bob, to take its bribe back, because that is what it was.

We are in a difficult financial situation, but who got us into it, not I? It was not people on this side of the House but rather those on the Government side, with their corrupt relations with the construction industry, for one thing. We are in a difficult situation globally, but Ireland is far worse off than most other countries in Europe because of the way the Government carried on, with its squandermania, and it is still at it. It destroyed the Combat Poverty Agency. One of the Members on the Government side of the House put on record a few days ago the fact that it will actually cost money to destroy the Combat Poverty Agency. Let us not have any more of this lying. We saw yesterday that councillors are to share €10 million — another little bribe. Why is the Government handing out €10 million to people as a type of golden handshake, which is not required? Why is it doing that while destroying the Combat Poverty Agency to save a minute proportion of that sum. This is outrageous.

I am glad, however, as Senator de Búrca pointed out, that the appalling situation where people could be widowed one day and have the medical card removed from them the next, is being amended. It was not amended, however, out of any sense of decency, but rather because Deputy Alan Shatter — with whom I disagree on many issues — pointed out that it would be unconstitutional and would not have survived.