On Friday the people sent the Taoiseach and his Government a clear message. They clearly rejected the policies of the Government and said it had no mandate to inflict the misery it had been inflicting on families or the damage it had been causing to society. They have now told the Government to end its brutal agenda of relentless austerity, reverse its policy of taking medical cards from sick children, imposing a family home tax, introducing a water tax and making vicious cuts to supports for the most vulnerable citizens. To borrow the Taoiseach's phraseology, Friday saw a real democratic revolution and the Taoiseach and the Government have been given notice to quit. That is the reason the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, has resigned as leader of the Labour Party. What about the Taoiseach? What is his response to the electorate's devastating verdict? Has he got the message? Is he listening to what the people have told him? Will he acknowledge the clearly expressed wishes of the people for a fundamental change of political direction?

I know that the Taoiseach will not resign. That is clear. However, will he renegotiate the programme for Government and when will this happen? What are his plans in respect of the further €2 billion required in cuts in the next budget? Will he persist in moving in this direction. Has he listened to what the people have told him or is he listening instead to his predecessor as Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader, Mr. John Bruton, who believes we face another ten or 15 years of cutbacks and brutal austerity budgets?

I was here with former Minister John Bruton and think he made two attempts at introducing a budget, neither of which was passed. I do not agree with his assertion. We are not going to change political direction. We have set targets and objectives which must be achieved. On the scale of the adjustment to be made in the budget for 2015, to be introduced in October, this is one issue we cannot determine now because we have yet to review the scale and state of the national accounts. That will be done later this year. From that point of view, I cannot give the Deputy or anybody else a definite answer until we see the scale of what is involved. I have already said it is a priority for the Government that where flexibility can be shown in the budget, it will be shown to hard-pressed taxpayers.

I congratulate Sinn Féin on its success in having members elected around the country. However, I want Deputy Mary Lou McDonald to understand that what I have heard from her party's spokespersons in the last while is that we should have free water, a reversal of the universal social charge, an abolition of the property tax-----

Indigestion tablets.

-----that everything and every service should be free of charge.

That is not right.

However, nobody in Sinn Féin has ever pointed out, despite the fact that it states its programmes were costed-----

The Taoiseach is still not listening.

-----that it has an 82% income tax rate built in. It faces the future with charged emotion, but the next contest will be different in nature.

We are looking forward to it.

It is going to be about whether the people want a government, in this case a Fine Gael-Labour Party Government, that is competent in keeping the affairs of the country in a state of solidarity and stability, with growth in confidence. The evidence is before our eyes - yields have fallen from 15% to 2.6% and we have had a fall in the unemployment lists for 24 consecutive months. That is heading in the right direction. The question for the future will be who do the people want in charge of the nation's economy? Do they want Fianna Fáil which wrecked it and put the problem on the shoulders of every person in the country and the next generation or do they want the Sinn Féin Party which shouts from every crossroads that everything should be free and which has no plan or no notion of who will pay for it?

It is not just a case of saying it should be different. If the Government - Fine Gael and the Labour Party - did not make the difficult decisions it had to make, the country would have been consigned to penury for the next generation because of the catastrophic effects of what had been left behind. I will not shirk the responsibility or back away from it. We will achieve the objectives we have set. The scale of the adjustment to be made in the budget to be announced in October is a question we cannot answer now until we see the state of the national accounts and finances.

This is not a shouting contest. This is Leaders Questions, when leaders are invited to ask a question and receive a reply, in silence. Deputies should, please, settle down and take their tablets, or else leave the Chamber.

I do not know how to break it to the Taoiseach, but he is not regarded as competent. He should have seen this; did he not follow the election results? He is not regarded as competent; neither is he regarded as being fair. He talks about others subjecting people to penury, but that is precisely what he has done. There is no public support for taking discretionary medical cards from very sick children. Does the Taoiseach get it? Has he heard this?

Will the Deputy, please, put a question? This is Leaders' Questions.

It is clear from the Taoiseach's response that there will be no renegotiation of the programme for Government. Did the Labour Party hear this?

Will the Deputy, please, address the Chair, not the Labour Party?

Did the Taoiseach tell the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, this?

This is not a time for play-acting. Will the Deputy, please, ask her question?

Has the Taoiseach told the Labour Party this? It seems there will be no change in the scale of the cutbacks envisaged in the next budget. Does the Labour Party know this? It seems that far from listening to the people and hearing the message, there is a frantic effort to rearrange the deckchairs on Titanic, to change the face or voice at the microphone and to continue on regardless. That is not acceptable. If the Taoiseach persists in this way, he has not listened or is not willing to listen. If, by any chance, he is declaring a general election, good for him - bring it on.

It is not so much that the political parties are waiting but that the people are waiting.

I ask the Deputy to put her question or else resume her seat. We are over time.

She should not be over-confident.

There is to be no change to the programme for Government or the scale of the cutbacks. Let me put this question to the Taoiseach.

The Deputy is way over time. I ask her to resume her seat.

Will the Taoiseach at least give back the medical card to Katie Connolly, a young child with Down's syndrome-----

I am sorry, but will the Deputy, please, put her question?

-----and to Alex Boyle, a young disabled child?

No, we are not having this. Will the Deputy, please, respect the Chair?

Will the Taoiseach at least do that if he has heard the voices of the people?

I ask everybody to, please, respect the Chair or, as I have said before, change the rules. Do not ask me to preside over a contest in which there are no rules, according to some.

I thank Deputy Mary Lou McDonald. In my years here I believe I have never passed a personal comment about any Member of the House in respect of his or her ability, competence or fairness. If she wants to proceed along that line, that is her right.

There was something along the lines of being accused of economic treason.

The programme for Government agreed between Fine Gael and the Labour Party has been more than 90% completed. Following the country's exit from the programme, we published a medium-term strategy which set out the path to progress for continued stability, confidence, growth and jobs. At the end of the day it is about investment, growth and jobs. Sinn Féin does not want this because it wants anarchy, if it could have its way. For the future, the Labour Party will follow its own process in finding a successor to the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore. The medium-term economic strategy we set out points the way to the future for the country. Within it we recognise, as we have done for a long time, the problems the country faced given what we had inherited. It has not been easy.

I am well aware that there is a problem in regard to discretionary medical cards.

The Government should sort it out.

We are going to fix that problem.

When?

It has been ongoing for a long time.

There is a problem. The problem is that the process for dealing with the issue is not what I want it to be. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald should believe me - we will deal with it. I have a set of proposals for a Cabinet sub-committee tomorrow.

In respect of cutbacks in the next budget, I have already set out the targets for 2015. Nobody can tell us what the exact state of the national finances will be until later this year. We have already made it perfectly clear that whatever flexibility is available to the Government in the course of preparing for the budget it will be shown to hard-pressed individuals and families. However, we cannot resile from the fact that if the decisions the Fine Gael and Labour Party Government had to make were not made, the country would have been consigned to a generation of absolute poverty.

We have done it for a generation of people. Is the Taoiseach blind?

The Deputy does not like to see 1,000 jobs a week being created and confidence returning to the country because all she wants to do is shout from the outside-----

The Government has deepened the recession.

-----and say: "I don't have responsibility; therefore, water charges should be reversed, USC should be abolished and property tax should be eliminated."

With more than 200,000 children living in poverty, we are at the edge.

When the Sinn Féin finance spokesperson was asked five times the other day if he would propose to reverse the water charge legislation, the answer was in the negative. Therefore, they are fine on the other side of the House-----

What about prom bonds?

-----but woe betide taxpayers and the businesspeople of the country the day Sinn Féin is given responsibility when it will not own up to what it is proposing - an 82% income tax rate and God knows what else to follow.