Yesterday the Minister for Finance promised something for everyone in the budget and he certainly delivered in that regard. He ensured pain for the poor, more cuts for the squeezed middle and more fear for the elderly. Deputy Donnelly in an interview on "Morning Ireland" this morning said that the Government has introduced a politically strong but economically weak budget and he was right.

Who said that?

An article in the Daily Mail today made reference to buying an election and that is what this Government is doing. All of the commentators are saying that the Government is buying votes with borrowed money.

That is not what all of the commentators are saying.

Please allow Senator Daly to speak. Members will have their opportunity to respond.

It is buying votes with borrowed money and that is a fact. The Government is also helping what could be seen as Fine Gael core voters, but not Labour Party core voters. Those who are earning €70,000 per annum are four times better off in cash terms than those earning the minimum wage, although I am sure the Labour Party would like to see the latter group voting for them in the next general election.

Who are the Fianna Fáil core voters? I ask Senator Daly to define them for us.

Those earning €17,500 will be worse off than those earning €70,000 and that is before we take water charges into account.

There are not many Fianna Fáil core voters left.

Does Senator Daly have a question for the Leader?

Before Government Senators get too excited about the budget they should wait until they go home.

We will be welcomed home.

When they arrive back in their constituencies they will meet those people who will be worse off.

Does the Senator have a question for the Leader?

I would like the Leader to organise a debate on what was not in the budget. The promise to get rid of prescription charged was not kept in the budget.

There was no promise.

We are all looking for the pen Deputy Ruairí Quinn used to sign the piece of paper that said he would abolish college fees.

Old news.

College fees will be €3,000 next year. The much lauded 1,700 extra teachers are not extra teachers but just keeping up with the growth in pupil numbers. There will be no reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio.

Do we not need extra teachers to do it?

The Government continues to steal money from private pensions. So far, €2.2 billion has been stolen from private pensions and the theft will continue.

Rubbish.

The Senator had better go back for a briefing.

I would like a debate on corporate tax policy. The Government has announced it will get rid of what is known as the "double Irish". Europe is delighted, however the countries that were complaining about our corporate tax policy continue to have the Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. The Dutch have a corporation tax and copyright policy that is the shame of the world. Luxembourg was highlighted last week. Our Government has got rid of the double Irish despite the fact that EU treaties state that every country is entitled to its own corporate tax policy. The Government has introduced this new knowledge development box, subject to EU approval - terms and conditions apply of course. It is talking double Dutch while getting rid of the double Irish.

Senator Daly is suffering from double delusions. When I hear him speaking about the budget, it seems he was not listening to what was said in the budget speeches in the Dáil or in the very substantive debate we had in this House last night. Had he been listening, as I was, or contributing, he might have noted that the commentators, like him, who said it was both auction politics and a continuation of austerity, had clearly got it wrong. It could not be both, and it was neither.

Even if you earn €70,000?

It represented, as both the Ministers, Deputies Noonan and Howlin, stressed, a modest step forward to a sustainable recovery.

The Senator will have to write to the editor of the Irish Daily Mail.

It is a modest budget.

Borrowing money and buying votes.

Nobody is being triumphalist over it. However, it represents real progress, particularly for low-income to middle-income earners. If one examines, as objective commentators have done, the impact of the changes to the USC and tax bands, one will see the people who will benefit are the low-income to middle-income earners, whom the budget was specifically designed to help.

We had a good debate last night. Some very fair and constructive comments were made by both sides. However, the bulk of the criticism was that the budget had not gone far enough, for example that we had not done enough on child care or increased spending in certain areas. While those were fair criticisms, it is unfair to suggest the budget was some kind of giveaway or auction politics or that it represented continued austerity. Clearly, it does not. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, was very clear in his speech that it signals an end to the era of austerity, and we are all very glad to see it.

I commend the Irish soccer team on the excellent result last night.

That is something we can all agree on.

I hope we can all join together without rancour or controversy on that. John O’Shea scored a breathtaking goal in the last minute and it was a super result for Ireland in Germany.

Just like the budget.

It added to the positive feelings most people felt last night.

I welcome other positive news that was, perhaps, lost in yesterday’s budget, namely that, for the first time, Ireland has been invited to participate in the British Armistice day event and that our ambassador in Britain, Dan Mulhall, will lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in London on Sunday, 9 November. This is a very welcome development and marks the contribution by 200,000 Irish men and women who went to Britain during the First World War and whose deaths had largely gone unmarked here for far too long. It is important that we are participating in it. In this context, I ask the Leader for a debate in the week that follows it in November, when there will be commemorations of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, on the decade of commemorations. I also welcome the increased funding in the budget that will pay for the commemorations. We might have the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Heather Humphreys here for it.

I commend the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, which will have an all-Ireland conference on midwifery tomorrow. I will be glad to address it on pregnancy pathways. Many of us have been concerned about the recent case of Philomena Canning, the withdrawal of insurance indemnity for a midwife involved in supporting women in home births and the lack of choice for women in terms of options in giving birth in hospitals. I was among those who participated in the show of support outside Leinster House last week.