CATASTROPHIC POLICY failures “have put us in the hole we are in” and the Government is unable to address its own policies because “the failures are too appalling to contemplate”, Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton has told the Dáil.

“The truth is that far from containing the property bubble, the Government stoked it. The truth is that far from regulating the excesses in banking, the Government turned a blind eye. The truth is that far from protecting export competitiveness, which is vital to our long-term survival, the Government created inefficiency in wide ranges of the public sector,” he said.

Speaking during the Government confidence debate, Mr Bruton said that “far from ensuring sustainability in our public finances, the Government created, as it now admits, a structural deficit that is 8 – 10 per cent of GNP. Far from creating the sort of public service that would reform, deliver excellence and efficiency, the Government undermined our public service. The Government introduced benchmarking that had no regard to delivery of reform. It introduced decentralisation that had no regard to the capacity of the public services to be cost effective and deliver in a coherent way. It was all about political strokes.”

Labour health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan said €4 billion was being put “into a zombie bank while €9.6 million is needed by Crumlin children’s hospital to provide essential services for children and €16 million is needed for a vaccine to protect women from developing cervical cancer”.

She added that money was required for child and adolescent psychiatric teams and beds because children are now in adult psychiatric hospitals. There are 6,000 children at risk who do not have a social worker and 8,000 children have not even had a preliminary assessment.

Joe Behan (Independent) criticised health and education cuts and said “penalising low-paid public servants with pension levies while allowing well paid members of the judiciary to opt in or out of this levy on a strictly confidential basis” was another example of “unjust and inequitable decisions” made by the Government.