Martin criticises two-tiered society created by Coalition

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has suggested the Government is creating the kind of society that Margaret Thatcher and the Tories stood for during the 1980s.

In his leader's address to an estimated 2,500 audience in the INEC in Killarney tonight, Mr Martin argued that the "economy must serve society - not the other way around".

“Margaret Thatcher once said that she didn’t believe in society.

“Well we do – and we believe in a politics which works for a decent, strong society and an economy which supports it.”

Arguing that the Coalition had created a two-tiered society, where one section was recovering and the other was being left behind, he said that the Irish economy needed to give everyone the opportunity to have a decent job and standard of living.

He claimed Government policies could not be achieved with public relations or “hoping that a few rising boats would lift everyone.”

“The endless spinning of statistics and non-stop campaigning is ignoring a much harder truth. This is the truth of an Irish public losing faith in the ability of politics to have a real vision for the future.

“The Irish people know some things are improving but there is a two-tiered recovery underway. Some are moving ahead but many are being left behind,” he said.

Mr Martin honed in on particular on what he described as a raft of new taxes and charges which he said were unfair. He particularly criticised the property taxes and water charges which will begin to be levied this year. He described them as unfair.

“No matter what your income is, what pressures you are dealing with, you get the same bill.

“This year the property tax has been doubled.

And it can’t be right that next year it will go up again in line with the property market which has absolutely no connection to people’s ability to pay.

“In seven months’ time water charges will hit. Everyone will pay but exactly how much will be secret until after the local elections – another cynical political ploy.”

There was focus too on the education sector, especially children who required special needs and therapies. He argued for integrated and coordinated interventions as being essential in a fair society.

Another significant theme was mental health, an issue which he said had a devastating impact on our society.

He also said that society could learn from what it had done well. Instancing the Road Safety Authority, he said its establishment had helped to halve deaths on Irish roads.

"I believe we can do the same in the field of mental health. That's why we are proposing the establishment of a National Mental Health Authority to be charged with leading an all-out national programme to promote positive attitudes to mental health and to reduce the incidence of self-harm and suicide.

“When we accept there is a national problem and agree to work together we can achieve big things.”

Mr Martin also marked the 10th anniversary of his own initiative to ban smoking in public places by saying it had contributed to saving 4,000 lives. The section of the speech was greeted with prolonged applause.

There were a limited number of direct political criticisms of the Government, including an attack on Minister for Justice Alan Shatter.

“When a Minister for Justice can refuse to apologise for falsely attacking members of the gardaí and still keeps his job, there’s something very wrong.

“We don’t just need reform of politics, we need a profound reform of every element of how the state works to legislate and govern,” he said.

Mr Martin also criticised the Government’s policies on Irish language, saying its neglect of the first language had been illustrated by the resignation of Irish language commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin. He also lambasted what he portrayed as the failure of the Government’s plans on political reform.

"It's very easy for politicians to focus on what they hear in Leinster House or from government press releases. That's a world which is completely removed from the reality of people's lives.

“The endless spinning of statistics and non-stop campaigning is ignoring a much harder truth. This is the truth of an Irish public losing faith in the ability of politics to have a real vision for the future.”