Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Social Democrats will not oppose this annual piece of legislation as we know it is needed to give legal authorisation to spending for the rest of this year and into next year. As has been the case for the previous two years, it is difficult to draw any sort of meaningful comparison with these figures. While normal life resumed for much of the country in the course of this year, Covid, of course, has not gone away and that is reflected in the figures before us.

We saw proof of that last week with the Supplementary Estimates for health. Of the more than €1.3 billion agreed, 85% was driven by Covid. What really sets this year apart from previous years is the spiralling cost of living. While I support the increased State intervention that has followed, this Government's response falls short of what struggling families and workers generally need to get through the winter and into next year. The Government billed budget 2023 as a giveaway budget, and I accept that it was the largest in years. There is no disputing that fact. However, all we have to do is look past the headline figures and spin to soon realise high income earners benefited disproportionately.

At a time when we should be investing heavily in public services - goodness knows there is no shortage of areas where we should be investing heavily, such as in housing, healthcare and disability services – the Government decided that rather than doing that, it would take a deliberate decision to erode the tax base. In doing so, it was playing to perhaps not its base but to the Fine Gael base. The weaknesses in the budget measures will soon become obvious when the temporary supports dry up and more and more people are struggling to put food on their tables, heat their homes or keep a roof over their heads. That is the reality and it is important that is stressed in the context of this debate.

In respect of the figures detailed in the Bill, some certainly were not commentary. Spending on health is the stand out area, representing 30% of the total supply of grants. Yet, despite this record spend, we are still lagging behind in the implementation of Sláintecare. Sláintecare set out to achieve what we should be trying to always achieve in spending, namely, that we spend to save. We have a health service which is desperately discriminatory. It is a two-tier service and, by and large, available for people who can afford to pay for private health insurance. If people cannot pay, they go on long waiting lists. There are major issues with cross-subsidisation from the public purse to the private sector. There are a whole lot of issues around that.

We are an outlier in European terms regarding not having the kind of public health service the majority of people are happy to use and works properly.

There are serious questions over the cost of fully implementing the Sláintecare plan, and the Minister's Department should be concerned about that. The Sláintecare Implementation Strategy & Action Plan 2021-2023 pledged €3.69 billion for implementation but contained no costings at all. It turns out that the 2021 Sláintecare figure, the budget of €1.235 billion, had been just multiplied by three. That was the extent of any kind of examination of the costings. Obviously, that is no way to approach financial planning, and I am afraid it speaks to a wider issue, that is, the Government's lack of commitment to meaningful reform of the health service. There has been a lot happening and there are a lot of plans down on paper, but the pace of that reform has been desperately slow and the critical shift of activity away from the expensive acute hospital sector to the community is happening very slowly. That lower cost model of care is what we are trying to achieve, but we know that the hospital sector eats up the lion's share of the budget. That is the whole switch and refocus required under Sláintecare.

If the Government is really serious about implementing Sláintecare, the costs need to be updated. That has not happened since 2017. As the Minister will know, a huge amount has changed since then. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council estimates that the plan might cost an extra €1.5 billion by 2027. This needs urgent attention. An updated ten-year funding programme is required. I ask the Minister to ensure that that happens - and not only that. Again, if the Government regards having a properly functioning universal, single-tier public health service, it must commit to the funding annually. It should not be up to the whim of the Minister; it should be pre-committed funding in the Government's budget every year, just as public pay agreements and a number of other things are.

Another issue which falls under the Minister's brief and relates to the Department of Health is the rent payable on Miesian Plaza. The Minister will know that I have been chasing this issue for years. While I am glad to see it finally resolved, the State got a poor deal on it. The State failed to protect the public purse to the tune of about €4 million by caving in to the demands of the landlord. That should not happen. A better deal should have been struck on that.

As for housing policy, it would be remiss of me not to point out the staggering €340 million being deferred to next year by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. That does not include a substantial sum of money that was intended for housing but that has been diverted to other projects within that Department. It is by far the largest deferral, representing almost 50% of the total figure. That is just indefensible in the context of a housing emergency. One has to ask where this Government's sense of urgency is when it comes to the housing crisis. Does it not see the adults forced to live with their parents well into their 20s and 30s? That figure has gone up from 36% of people in their 20s and 30s who ended up living at home during those adult years to 61% of people in their 20s and 30s now still living at home. Does the Government not see the workers who cannot aspire to homeownership? Does it not see the 11,397 people, including 3,500 children, living in emergency accommodation? It is an absolutely shameful situation. The Government can keep telling us that its housing plan is working, but it is clearly not. The situation, in fact, is only getting worse because house prices are going up, rents are going up and the number of people in homelessness is going up all the time.

The figures do not lie; the Government cannot argue with them. It is underspending and undoubtedly underperforming when it comes to housing in particular.

Last week I raised the pathetic vacant homes tax with the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, and called on him to implement a tougher tax rate when he moves into the Department of Finance. Today I wish to raise with him another ridiculous housing policy, that is, long-term leasing. This is a prime example of policy that is appalling value for money yet championed by this Government. Public expenditure, as I said, should be guided by the principle of spending to save. The spending on long-term leases does the absolute opposite of that. It takes out leases on homes that have been built, predominantly apartments - high-rise apartments, build-to-rent apartments, which were built with lower standards, smaller apartments and so on. They are entirely inappropriately located, with 14 or 15 storeys in established residential areas and so on. The key thing about this, however, is that the State is paying the equivalent of a mortgage over a 25-year period or top-dollar rent. The local authority has responsibility for tenants, maintenance and so on, and after those 25 years of paying what amounts to a mortgage on each of those apartments, the local authority has to refurbish them and hand them back, so it does not end up with any asset after that huge outlay over a 25-year period. This is the most expensive way of providing social homes for people, and I have no idea why the Government is doing it. The city manager in Dublin was very clear about this. Through the planning changes the Government introduced, the lowering of standards and the mandatory national guidelines, it has created poor-quality housing and high-rise housing that is unsuitable for long-term living, and it is paying through the nose for it. That is not a responsible thing to do.

On Saturday, by all accounts, the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, will become the Minister for Finance. I wish him well personally in that regard but ask him to please consider a change in tack. He has been led by the nose to a large extent and in many respects by his Fine Gael colleagues in respect of erosion of the tax base and failure to invest significantly in public services. I ask him to cease this continuous calling for tax cuts and to invest in public services, make ours a cohesive State and change direction.

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