Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the Minister of State for his reply. I have great empathy with the Minister of State at a political as well as a personal level, because I could not help but be reminded, as I was listening to him talking about the decisions taken by this Government in the national interest, of the exact same rhetoric, which I listened to in the dying months of the last Fianna Fáil-led Administration. Keep in mind that the Administration that Brian Cowen took over in 2008 was faced with the virtual economic collapse of the country. What happened before that was a prior Government's decision.

What has been lost in the argument and the justifiable anger of the electorate in recent years, is that from 2008 on, that Government attempted to rebuild the nation's finances and get us out of penury. In the closing months, when the Green Party decided to pull out of government, there was great debate within the Government as to what direction to take - whether it would go to the country at that time, October-November 2010, or stay in power in the national interest and put forward a budget. We know what happened. The budget was framed and it was passed, in the national interest.

The Fianna Fáil Party was then decimated because of the decisions it took, not in a selfish way, but from its patriotic duty and responsibility to ensure the country would get out of the economic mess it had got into. I am not putting that forward as a reason for the Government to pull back from the patriotic decisions it is taking in the national interest, and I have no doubt that is its motivation, but the electorate can be very cruel. While both of us can argue about the merits or otherwise of that Administration, there is no doubt in my mind, and I will be convinced until I leave this House and beyond, that the decisions taken by that Government, with Brian Lenihan as Minister for Finance, helped to provide the framework from which the new Government, when it took over, was able to carry on its economic agenda.

It is equally ironic that the four-year plan published by the outgoing Fianna Fáil Administration in its dying months was effectively the model used and implemented by the current Government up to and including the point at which the troika left. I am sure we could have a very interesting debate about it but it is important to put it on the record. Around Christmas, in particular, I reflect on those months because it was at Christmas time that all of this happened.

While I welcome the increase in the living alone allowance from €7.90 to €9 per week, this increase works out at €0.20 per day. That is the reality of it. My colleague in the Dáil went into great detail about the various decisions taken by this Government. I do not want to be ultra-political about it, but in the context of the Government's own presentation of the improvements in social welfare and the increase in payments, I wish to point out that although €196 million is being put back into social welfare, the Government took almost €2 billion out of it in the three preceding budgets. Outside organisations and NGOs have indicated that this has widened the gap between rich and poor by a minimum of €500. As a result of the budget, a single unemployed person gains €46.80 per year. A couple with two earners on €125,000 per year gains €1,226, which is nearly 30 times more. The budget gives about €0.90 per week to an unemployed single person, and €14.30 per week to a single person earning €75,000. That does not sound like a progressive policy to me and it is impacting on the vulnerable.

I have a lot of other statistics before me here but am taking my cue from the Minister of State and will not go into them all. I will stand over the record of previous Fianna Fáil Administrations in the area of social welfare. The primary reason there was a grand alliance of the electorate from the left, centre and right was the policies pursued by successive Fianna Fáil Administrations aiming to help the poor and the vulnerable. If we sound a little sensitive in this area it is because it is in our party's DNA to protect the vulnerable at all times. That is why we are critical of this Government and this Department in terms of how they are addressing the most vulnerable in our society.