SINN FÉIN:SINN FÉIN Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin has called on the Government to resign and face the people.

He said the Government was “bankrupt not only in finances but bankrupt in policies, bankrupt in skills and bankrupt in ideas”.

Mr Ó Caoláin said the people clearly had absolutely no confidence in the Government.

“They have shown that by their overwhelming vote last Friday in the local and European elections. This is a disastrous Government and with no mandate.

“They have no political authority to govern and no competence to govern.”

He said 400,000 unemployed people and their dependants demanded that the Government should go.

“The many thousands of workers whose incomes have been hit by pay cuts, short-time working and unfair levies demand that the Government should go,” he added.

“People hit by savage cuts to public services in health and education demand that this Government go.”

He said the “coalition of corrupt politicians, property developers and bankers” had brought the economy to its knees and they could not lead it into recovery.

Mr Ó Caoláin criticised Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan for saying that social welfare rates were far more generous than those in other countries.

“Minister Lenihan should try living on the €204.30 per week jobseeker’s allowance,” he said.

“Or better still, he should try living on €100 per week, the new rate for unemployed people under 20, after the Fianna Fáil-Green Government’s savage budget cut to the allowance for young people.”

Mr Ó Caoláin said that instead of coming up with a real job-creation strategy, Mr Lenihan was preparing to cut social welfare on the spurious basis that unemployed people did not want to work because welfare payments were so generous.