Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What will the closures do to communities with the resultant increase in crime levels?

Here is a lovely detail. I am sure the old internal party policy committee on fairness gave a lot of consideration to the following. The annual respite grant will be reduced from ¤1,700 to ¤1,375. Hooray for the Government. What great fairness? It is prize-winning stuff. If the Government had introduced the universal social charge of 3% that Fianna Fáil proposed it would have brought in ¤200 million. I put it to the Minister of State that people on high incomes were ready for it. They expected a cut but the Government ignored them. Why? Fine Gael said it would bargain the ¤188 social welfare benefit with the Labour Party but there is no way it would touch its supporters living in the gin and tonic belts. Fine Gael thought it could not allow that in the interest of the people.

There are more issues. It will clearly be more expensive to go to college. It will clearly be more difficult for students to qualify for grants, not to mention the unmitigated disaster that the Minister for Education and Skills has presided over with the introduction of Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI. We have the kettle calling the pot black because the Minister suggested that the Minister for Health should go. Both of them should go because of their disasters.