Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

I agree with the Minister to some extent and as we approach the finality of this Bill I have no doubt that if the Fine Gael Party was in government I would be sitting on this side of the House opposing the measures it would introduce in a social welfare Bill because our party has shown clearly that social welfare should not be touched. The Minister said that if we did not touch social welfare we would have to cut public sector workers or services harder. That is not true. As I said earlier, €50 billion of US debt has been bought up by Irish individuals and investors in recent months. There is wealth in this country. The Minister had many other opportunities to increase the tax take to offset the cuts she has to introduce. It is not just a case that there are three areas - social welfare, the public sector or services. There is an area where we could have found the money to offset the decisions the Minister is taking and the Government is implementing. We should be honest about that. I have tried to be as honest as possible, and the Minister may have had a difficulty with what I have said, in terms of this debate. There are difficult decisions that the Government has to take but there are people who are earning huge amounts of money. There are people in the public sector earning €500,000. That does not make sense. We could have hit those people harder. It is not about punishing people who have wealth, who have taken risks and done well for themselves. It is about the ability to pay.

In his contribution Senator Boyle-----