David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tomorrow is an important day for the future of the House. Now that academics, campaign groups, political parties and the rest of the political classes have completed their debate, the people will have their say tomorrow. I hope they will come out in large numbers to vote in the referendums on the future of the Seanad and the establishment of a new court of appeal. Whatever they decide in both referendums, we will accept the outcome.

I suspect that, outside the four walls of this Chamber, people are more concerned about what the upcoming budget will entail for them and their families. I welcome the news that the adjustment will be less than €3.1 billion. The previous two budgets introduced by this Government and the previous four budgets introduced by its predecessor have forced more people into poverty and out of work. As a result of the poor decisions that were made in those budgets, many people have been forced to emigrate. In the past two years, I have called for genuine, proper discussions and debates on the alternative budget proposals of Opposition political parties and groups outside the Houses which make submissions on alternative budget measures.

We have not had that and that, to me, would be real and genuine political reform. We must move beyond arriving at budget day and being presented with a fait accompliand not having the genuine robust debate that we need to have on budget day.

Our party was asked to submit our alternative budget to the Government and we did so. It has been fully costed. Again, we will present a fairer way to deal with the economic crisis and address our deficit by giving working families a break, the families who have disproportionately borne the brunt of the last number of budgets, protecting public services and, more important, getting people back to work.

We need to have the debate on unemployment and emigration again. While it is welcome that the live register figures have fallen, the reality is that three times as many people have left this State during the past three months than have come off the live register. That is the reality. It is a fact and we need to have a debate on that issue.