Opposition line up to berate Noonan’s ‘election Budget’

FIANNA FÁIL Party finance spokesman Michael McGrath was the first Opposition spokesman to speak.

He described the Budget as ‘the final roll of the dice from a government that has run out of ideas and is about to run out of road’.

He highlighted emergency accommodation, hospital waiting times and homecare packages as areas his party believes should have been targeted and were not.

‘I regret that I see nothing in this Budget that will make a real difference to these people and many others who most need our help,’ he said in the Dáil.

‘The Government is delusional if it believes that decisions made on Merrion Street during its tenure brought about recovery.

‘After breaking promise after promise for the past four and a half years, this Budget is an attempt by the Government to take a short cut to popularity.’

SINN FÉIN Sinn Féin’s deputy leader and public expenditure spokesman, Mary Lou McDonald, described the Budget as one that would be worthy of any Tory party, adding that the wealthiest in society are the ones that once again gain most from a Coalition budget.

‘The big winners have been the wealthiest sections of society, those that believe in low wage or poverty wage competition and those that wish to cannibalise public services for private gain,’ Ms McDonald said.

‘Far from offering protection, your government has exposed families and workers to an obscene jamboree of cutbacks, waiting lists and broken promises.

‘Living from day to day, week to week, month to month just about making ends meet.

‘You promised a democratic revolution but you have presided over a series of democratic somersaults and contradictions that leave this economy and our citizens damaged and vulnerable,’ she said.

Ms McDonald said the Budget cemented the reputation of Enda Kenny as a Taoiseach was subservient to the Troika.

RENUA IRELAND Leader Lucinda Creighton welcomed the cut to USC, but said she was concerned the Government could be ‘selling the family silver’ in a bid to get re-elected.

‘USC is an iniquitous tax which is a choke chain on ambition and advancement, that is why our flat tax of 23 per cent is predicated upon the abolition of USC. But our commendations end there,’ Ms Creighton said.

‘This Budget is a reckless and dangerous attempt to spend anticipated future revenues in order to stave off the political debts incurred by the Coalition’s broken promises. The Coalition today is selling the family silver in order to steal the next election,’ she said.

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS TDs in the Dáil’s newest grouping believe the Budget is shortsighted and will cost the electorate more in the long run.

Stephen Donnelly, said: ‘Surely we should have learned from the mistakes of the past by now. We have had the cycle of accrue it then give it away when an election looms.

‘That is exactly what Fianna Fáil has done for years and look where that got us.

‘This Budget today will ensure that the tax base is destabilised and critical investment in public and social services will be insufficient to stem the tide of decline in our services,’ he added.

ANTI- AUSTERITY ALLIANCE ‘This Government has already delivered four regressive budgets, this budget is likely to be the fifth,’ Paul Murphy TD said.

‘This Budget will not deliver any substantial change into people’s everyday lives, people need real change not Fine Gael and Labour’s spare change.

‘Every single budget the Government has introduced has been regressive and increased the gap between the rich and the poor.

‘For example with the USC cut, a worker on €25,000 will benefit by 1.1 per cent while someone on €70,000 per year will benefit by 2 per cent, nearly double,’ he said.

‘The interests being looked after in this Budget are the interests of the 1 per cent over the interests of the majority in society.’