For Fianna Fail, 2011 was year zero – McCarthy

If Fianna Fail did mind games, they’d probably be the best mind games in the world.  

Micheal Martin and his band of magic men are trying to trick people into thinking that 2011 was year zero for Fianna Fail – as if they are newcomers to the game with all the solutions but none of the responsibility.

As if they didn’t have their hand at the steering wheel of the country for 14 years.

They did. Not only did Fianna Fail drive the car, but they crashed it, wrote it off and left the repair job to this Government.

Maybe they are still suffering from concussion, because today Fianna Failers would have you believe that they had no hand, act nor part to play in critical mistakes they made which plunged the Irish economy into crisis for years.

Houdini himself would have found that one difficult to pull off.

Today, Fianna Fail launched their strategy for older people – a desperate attempt to shore up last-minute support from the group they viciously targeted like predators at the height of the economic crisis.

Their arrogance is galling. Fianna Fail ministers like Michael Martin sat at Cabinet, approved and then forced through the cuts in payments like the baseline carers allowance, bringing it from €220.50 in 2009 to €204 in 2011. This was a total cut of €16.50 per week, or more than €850 per year.

This is the party that in 2008 tried to rob the over-70s of their medical cards and that slashed the Widow’s Pension and the Blind Pension.

The Labour Party in Government moved to increase payments to older people as soon as resources allowed for it.

It is what we said we’d do at the last election, and we did it. But don’t ask Fianna Fail, because they weren’t around before 2011, apparently.

ENDS

For more information contact Michael McCarthy on 087 648 1004