David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

What does not add up and what is not right socially, economically or morally is that we should be paying back private banking debt. That is what we are doing at a time when we are asking people to shoulder huge amounts of pain. Low to middle income families are being asked to pay every time. The Minister of State can sit in his chair, nod his head and do whatever he likes but the reality is that people on the ground see it differently.

I am not saying that the Government has not done any good. It has done some good. I am fully conscious of the fact that the two parties in Government have taken over an enormous mess created by the previous Government, hence our amendment, but it should be big enough to be able to accept constructive criticism when it is pointed out what it promised to do. The fact that the red line issues which the Labour Party in particular signed up to could be simply broken in its first year in office is not good enough for many voters. The people of Ireland deserve better.

An issue I hope we can all agree on is that we cannot have austerity and cuts alone. Adjustments must be made in terms of reducing the deficit. It then comes down to what those adjustments should be, and we can differ on those, but one thing we need is an investment and growth strategy. There is still over €5 billion in the National Pensions Reserve Fund. That money should be used to build infrastructure including schools, roads and all the issues Senator Whelan mentioned.