Every citizen in the State is frightened and apprehensive about the future, according to Mayo Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony.
In a Dáil speech this week calling on the Government to ensure the 2011 Budget is presented before year end, Dep O’Mahony said: “I heard a five-year-old child say to her mother the other day, ‘Am I going to have to go to America or England when I leave school?’ and it brought home to me the amount of apprehension and fear that is on the ground.
“Members of the public know that the medicine to be doled out in the budget will not be easy. They have lost all confidence in the present regime, reinforced by the events of the last few days which have seen our futures and those of our children sold out to the EU and the IMF. We saw much of the proposed recovery plan become obsolete before the ink was dry.
“The body language of every statement issued, press conference, and one-to-one interview on television over the weekend indicated that this Government is a beaten docket, that these negotiations were not really negotiations at all but were totally one-sided. The main agenda of our European partners was to save the euro rather than Ireland and the Government let them walk all over it. It was said to me today that the only thing not conceded in this past week was the playing of the All-Ireland finals for the next 10 years at either Wembley Stadium or the Olympic Stadium in Munich.
“People are crying out for some sense of certainty and stability, economic and political. They want to get on with it and to then have a general election as soon as possible after the budget. To bring this about the finance and social welfare bills would need to come before this House before Christmas. As it is, we will sit for only eight more days this session. These bills could be dealt with if we sat each working day. This would give people the opportunity to give their verdict early in the New Year on the unfairness, incompetence, and arrogance of this Government during the past 15 years.”
