FAIRNESS NEEDED IN BUDGET

Fine Gael’s Dr. Liam Twomey has said that the target of €6 billion will bring the deficit to 9.5% of GDP. “Unfortunately with Fianna Fail and the Greens at the helm, the public have no confidence in them and they do not believe that the cuts will be felt by everyone across the board. The public feel that people at the lower end will be hit harder than those at the top. Fianna Fail does not believe that those who have the most should pay the most and we have seen this unfair policy in Minister Lenihan’s apparent obsession to protect Anglo Irish Bank against all the economic advice and to the detriment of everyone else in county Wexford and across the country.”

“With 18,372 unemployed in County Wexford, this figure will rise without a stimulus plan. This has not been part of Fianna Fail’s policy in the last couple of years and Minister Lenihan’s solution seems to be for 100,000 people to leave the country so that the live register figures will decrease. There are about 100,000 small businesses in Ireland and if the government could support them so that they can increase their workforce by just one then that would be an extra 100,000 people off the live register.”

“This government has let the people down and Minister Lenihan and his colleagues have not been telling us the truth about the figures. They have been drip feeding the bad news in the hope that they can dupe the public into thinking that Fianna Fail has their best interests at heart. Fianna Fail have not put the country first and we have seen this first hand in County Wexford with the closure of the Rosslare to Waterford line, and the continuous threat to our A & E, our maternity services and our mental health services. Fianna Fail allowed the construction sector to increase in an unsustainable manner while ignoring our manufacturing industries and farming and this was felt most acutely in county Wexford. “

“With Fianna Fail running out of ideas, we need a Fine Gael led government with Ministers from County Wexford who will ensure that all our services will be maintained for the people of county Wexford.”