GOVERNMENT BACKBENCHER Mary O'Rourke criticised Fine Gael and Labour for their attitude to the medical card controversy.
"It appears to me there was a great deal of playacting,'' said the Longford-Westmeath Fianna Fáil TD.
"I regret that confusion arose between last week and early this week until the matter was cleared up.''
Fine Gael, said Ms O'Rourke, had always been admired for its self-reliance, that one should provide for oneself where possible and should not rely on government to do so.
She said that, as she understood it, the Labour party represented socialism, the essence of which was that those who deserved something got it, and those who did not deserve it did not.
That allowed one to target scarce resources at all those most in need, she said.
But it appeared it was no longer the case because the Labour party now wished everybody over the age of 70 years to get a medical card, regardless of means.
Ms O'Rourke, a pensioner, said that she earned enough to ensure that she did not need a medical card.
"I hope many others are in the position of being able to afford to meet their own medical expenes,'' she added.
"I deserve no credit in this regard," Ms O'Rourke, who was speaking during the resumed Budget debate, said people were afraid that Fine Gael and Labour would get into government, which would be bad for the country.
"This was never going to be a pretty Budget," she said. "Nobody ever said it would be. How could it be?"
It was a Budget, she added, where "very practical and austere decisions" had to be taken.
Pat Breen (FG, Clare) said that Ennis national school had 14 prefabricated buildings, and there was no movement in the promised new school.
"We are at the stage now where both primary and secondary school students are reduced to packing bags in shops in order to fund much-needwed facilities in schools throughout the country, despite the fact that we have had 10 years of unprecedented wealth," said Mr Breen.
"Our education system is surviving on a shoestring," Mr Breen said that the €10 travel fee, claiming that it would affect passengers travelling through Shannon airport.
"It is an unfair tax which was clearly put in with an agenda for Dublin," he added.
Charlie O'Connor (FF, Dublin South West) said that on Wednesday the streets of Dublin were a different place to those of his youth.
"I am a proud Dubliner, but to my knowledge, the kind of scenes witnessed yesterday were unprecedented. While the students' protest was to be expected, the number of elderly people was not," he added.
"I am not afraid to make this point from the Fianna Fáil benches as my mother and grandmother, who came from these parts, would wish it."
