If the updated stability programme the Government published during the week showed anything, it is that austerity is not working. Yet again it has been forced to revise down growth forecasts and revise upwards unemployment projections. Throughout Europe, people are waking up to the reality that austerity is not working. I note today President Higgins is the nation's voice.

No. We do not go there. The Deputy should not go there with regard to the President. We do not discuss the President in Dáil Éireann.

Citizens in the real world have been pushed to breaking point and now the Government has advised them that two more years of austerity are on the way. The stealth taxes, the family home tax, cuts to child benefit and taxing maternity benefit all have a real impact on low and middle-income families. People need a break. If the State is due to meet the deficit targets with €1 billion or more to spare, this money needs to be used to give people a break and ease the burden on citizens.

The Deputy is contradicting herself.

I wish to highlight one section of people who are suffering, the carers. Perhaps the most mean-spirited cut in the last budget was the €300 or 19% cut in the respite care grant. At the time of the budget the Government could not defend on any level that nasty cut and to this day nobody with a bone of decency in them could stand over it. The cut, which will save the State only €26 million in total, has caused real hardship for the 70,000 families in receipt of it. Why does the Government not use the breathing space it has advised us we have to reverse the cut to the respite care grant? It is only €26 million and the Government claims we will have €1 billion in advance of targets. Can the Government give the carers some comfort and respite by reversing that cut?

There would be no breathing space if the Government had followed the prescription advocated by Sinn Féin.

Hear, hear.

When the Government was formed, the Sinn Féin leader proclaimed that the IMF should go home and take its money with it.

Sorry, please-----

If that had happened there would have been five months' money left to pay for all public services in circumstances where at the stage when we came into government the country was not able to borrow on the private markets.

The deal was done before the Government came in to office.

I do not know what it would have recommended that we would do for money.

We now have some breathing space because of the way the Government has managed the country's finances and the economy. We are making a recovery, which was very adequately demonstrated this week with the numbers of new job announcements. The creation of jobs is at the root of economic recovery. Another 100 jobs were announced in Waterford today and 100 announced yesterday in Dublin. Some 1,600 jobs were announced for the Glanbia development. There will be approximately 1,000 jobs on the development of the M7 and N11 which have also been announced. That is how we will get economic recovery.

There is a debate throughout Europe about the economic strategy to be pursued. Austerity, as the Deputy calls it, is not some kind of choice. The Government needs to ensure we have a solvent country that can pay its way. It is unfortunate that as a country we are still borrowing approximately €1 billion a month to pay our way. Nobody is in any doubt that we need to get the deficit down unless they live some kind of fairytale existence as Sinn Féin members seem to do. The recovery that needs to come about is not a recovery based solely on budget adjustment. That is obviously part of it because we need to get the deficit down. It is also based on creating the circumstances for investment in the country with jobs created and we grow our way out of it. That is the Government's strategy.

Really.

That is the strategy the Government has been advocating at a European level and I am glad to see that more are taking heed of that and that European policy overall is adjusting more to the strategy we have been advocating for some time.

The Government's problem is that it has again had to adjust downwards the growth projections. That gives the lie to the claim that its strategy is working.

The Government has also had to revise upwards the unemployment projections, so the Tánaiste should not come in with his own fairytale that all is well, because it is not. By the way, nobody ever contested the fact the budget deficit had to be tackled. We produced proposals to do precisely this, but in a different way.

Darby O'Gill economics.

Whatever about the Tánaiste's fairytale-----

It was some fairytale on "Prime Time" the other night.

-----it is no fairytale for carers because home help hours have been cut by more than 1 million hours in the system in 2012 and prescription charges have increased, but the salt in the wound was the mean cut to the respite grant of €300, or almost 20%, which would yield a saving of €26 million.

Thank you.

The Tánaiste boasted about the breathing space, so he should use it, and when he stands up again I ask him please to address the issue of carers and the respite grant. It might interest him to know carers have launched a campaign, Give Carers a Break, which sets out in very stark terms the effect this cut to the respite grant has had.

We cannot go through it today.

The campaign video features Carolyn, who cares for her mother, and Antoinette and Sam, who care for their daughter and sister respectively.

Thank you, Deputy.

They set out in very clear and real terms - there are no fairytales - the effect this particular cut to the respite grant has had on their lives.

Thank you.

They have cut back on heating and food. This is real material damage to the lives of carers and those for whom they care.

Thank you.

I ask the Tánaiste very simply to reverse this particular cut. It is only one of the cuts which has hurt carers.

Thank you. I call the Tánaiste.

For €26 million I ask the Tánaiste to reverse this cut, which I do not believe he could ever stand over, even in the budget.

I ask Deputies to respect the Chair and the time restraints I must impose.

I do not need any lecture from Deputy McDonald-----

It was a question.

-----on the important work carers do.

That is why you have cut them, is it?

I have some personal experience of it, so please do not give us this type of pompous lecture.

Then stop the cuts.

The work carers do is hugely important and valued, which is why the Government, unlike its predecessor, has published a carer's strategy. This is why Ministers in the Government work to support carers and will continue to do so.

I am glad to hear Deputy McDonald state, and it is the first time I have heard it from Sinn Féin, that she now accepts the target of reducing the deficit to 3% by 2015-----

Then your listening skills are poor.

Where have you been for the past three years?

-----because Sinn Féin has not been saying this.

We have. We do it every budget cycle.

It will be interesting to see what proposals come from Sinn Féin in the run-in to the 2014 budget. I look forward to seeing them.

What about the respite grant?

I have answered the Deputy on the respite grant.

No, you have not. So your answer is that you will not reverse it-----

I have answered.

-----and you understand the work of carers.

Would Deputy McDonald mind addressing her remarks through the Chair? It is the normal courtesy, in case she does not know it, which exists in the House.

A Cheann Comhairle-----

Resume your seat.

Can I raise an issue?

No, you cannot. Resume your seat.

I presume when we ask a question-----

Resume your seat, I said.

-----that we can expect an answer.

I am not responsible for the replies.

I asked specifically about the respite care grant and the Tánaiste specifically did not answer.

I will not ask the Deputy a second time to resume her seat.

Will the Ceann Comhairle ask the Tánaiste to answer the question?

Deputy McDonald is expected to respect the Chair, like everybody else.

The Tánaiste did not answer the question on the carers.