Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

Estimates confirm government "confidence trick" - Ó Caoláin

Sinn Féin Dáil leader and Finance spokesperson Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD led the party's interventions on the budget estimates debate in Leinster House. Here is an edited version of his speech:

"The Book of Estimates confirms the fact that Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats pulled a massive confidence trick on the electorate before the General Election. The huge gap in the public finances did not appear out of the sky this summer. Preparations were being made in the Department of Finance before the General Election for such a shortfall. Yet the government parties assured the people there was no deficit and there would be no cutbacks.

The government has effectively torn up its own Programme for Government, the National Development Plan and the National Health Strategy.

The most shameful and disgraceful broken promise has to be this government's reneging on its commitment to extend medical card cover to a further 200,000 people. It should not be seen simply in the context of this year's u-turns by the government. Throughout the years of the Celtic Tiger, people on low incomes who earn that little bit over the limit for qualification for the medical card, had a right to expect that increased prosperity would finally allow the government to extend qualification. They were led to believe that before the election and now they have been betrayed.

The government is bragging about its increases in the health budget but the reality is that the 6% spending increase for next year is far behind medical inflation, which is running at 10%.

The drop in expected spending will cause substantial cutbacks in services and jobs. Patients will suffer and perhaps even die as a result. The Department of Health has confirmed that no new beds will be opened next year. We were promised over 3,000 new beds within the ten-year period of the Health Strategy.

I want to express here the outrage of people at the government's slashing of the first-time homebuyers' grant. This is an appalling act and it must be reversed. It too must be seen in a broader context and that is the abject failure over five years of the government's so-called housing policy.

In the last Dáil, there was hardly a deputy that did not raise the cases of schools in their constituencies that were waiting years for badly needed new build or repair work.

Some of these children are trying to learn in atrocious Dickensian conditions. Again, the pre-election promise from this government was that they would deliver, the budget would go up and the work would be done. Another false commitment, another betrayal."