Below, Clare Daly's Dáil statement in response to Budget 2013. Scroll to the bottom of the piece to view a video of the speech.

Below, the full text of Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald's budget speech, delivered yesterday (5 December) in the Dáil. Scroll to the bottom to view a video of the speech.

The urgency of introducing a more transparent and equitable approach to economic policy-making cannot be stressed enough, as the brunt of the economic crisis continues to be borne by those least able to do so. By Clara Fischer.

For common sense to prevail, the extremists on both sides of the abortion debte must be marginalised and ignored as much as possible. By Philip O'Connor.

If we really want to honour Savita Halappanavar and finally have a proper debate on abortion in Ireland, we need to silence the extremists on both sides.

That the most vulnerable will also get hit merely reinforces the view that whatever the government does, it has little to do with social equity or economic rationality; never mind ‘protecting the vulnerable’. By Michael Taft.

If you’re going to go and U-turn on commitments, why go back on those which were intended to protect low-average income groups? By Michael Taft.

On 27 November 2012, the Eurogroup (comprising the Eurozone’s finance ministers) reached a decision on Greece. Its essence is a guarantee that Greece will remain in the Eurozone (and therefore off the Northern European agenda) for another ten to twelve months; at the very least until the German federal political cycle has seen through the election of a new Bundestag. The repercussions of this short-sighted agreement are grave not only for Greece but for the Eurozone, and indeed the European Union, more broadly.

This present government, which promised an end to politics as it had been, has continued in the rut of politics as it has been and continued to use blatant party affiliation as a basis of appointment to the judiciary. By Vincent Browne.

The unborn do not have an unqualified right to life: that qualification centres crucially on the pregnant woman and only she should decide. By Vincent Browne.

How anybody thought an investigation panel into the death of a person in a hospital controlled by the Health Service Executive could include medics from that hospital and a representative of the HSE itself would be beyond belief were it not devised by the hapless James Reilly.

So too is the absence of any clear legal basis for investigation, made worse by the absence of legal expertise on the panel.

If means-testing delivers resources to those most in need, then we should have seen this in Ireland. But have we? By Michael Taft.

The Troika is at it again – putting pressure on the Government to do something. This time the ‘something‘ is to introduce more means-testing.