Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

On the reward for essential and front-line workers and for people generally who sacrificed during Covid, I very much welcome this conversation. It has become controversial. It may be somewhat difficult for the Minister but it is very good that we are having a difficult and controversial conversation. Many people went unacknowledged and unrecognised for a long time as to the importance of the work they did to keep our society going. Generally, the right approach in terms of the immediate recompense is the engagement with the various groups that the Minister is now speaking about. Obviously, there are different groups of workers, whether they be front-line health workers, most importantly, but also public transport workers, local authority workers, retail workers and carers. They all had different experiences, played different roles and had different difficulties and challenges. We need to talk to them.

I will give an example in which I was particularly involved which demonstrates something about how we need to listen to people on the ground. This is the case of Dublin Bus workers. After all they did for us during Covid, a proposal was put by the NTA and the company that would fundamentally attack their conditions of employment and lead them to work much longer hours. Somebody dreamt up a plan for how to reconfigure Dublin Bus services which in the process would destroy the quality of life of the drivers. They give a resounding "No" to that. This is an example of how we have to listen to workers on the ground to see what their experiences are.

Beyond the immediate reward, what many people out there are looking for, whether they were on the front line or just sacrificed terribly because they could not work, is longer-term recognition of their importance, which has sometimes been undervalued. The arts and music sector is an obvious area. There are many others. In many cases our supermarket workers are chronically low paid. They suffer precarity and the issue of low pay more generally. I would be interested to see whether these types of recognition are part of the longer-term lessons we learned, as well as the short term.

I would add to the Minister's consideration that some people who were under-recognised did a huge amount for us and sacrificed a lot for us and lost out in one shape or form during the pandemic. Others did very well. Some sectors of our economy saw profits go through the roof. I wonder in the context of the budget should there not be serious consideration given, as some countries have done, to a Covid solidarity tax on those who did very well. I ask the Minister to comment on this.

On the health service, perhaps the Minister could be a bit more specific about the lessons he has learned on the increased areas of expenditure he is considering. We know our ICU levels were some of the worst as a proportion of population in Europe entering Covid. Will we rectify this and get to the previously recommended levels? At least we should get up to the EU average. So we do not just respond in an emergency way and are desperately clambering, will we get our public health teams up to the levels they should be at so there are permanent increases in capacity? All of these were recommended pre-Covid but in some cases we learned to our cost what the cost can be if we do not have the capacity when we hit an emergency. Perhaps the Minister will say a little bit more about what the permanent areas of increased expenditure to deliver increased capacity in health will be.

I ask the Minister to clarify some matters on housing. The figure of €4 billion per annum over the course of Housing for All is being bandied around. Is this direct Exchequer funding? Can we have a little bit more detail on what this €4 billion is and where it is coming from? Is it €4 billion additional or is it €4 billion in total to the Department? What I want to know is how much of it is directly going into the direct construction by local authorities and approved housing bodies of new public and affordable housing. How much of it will continue in the rental accommodation scheme, the housing assistance payment, leasing or other expenditure that is not about directly delivering housing? Perhaps the Minister will say a few words about that.

A lot of borrowing is being done. It was justified to borrow to meet the challenges we faced. There is a danger in borrowing because it has to be paid back. We have always argued, as the Minister knows, that we should think more about taxing increased contributions in the area of profits, financial transactions and employers' PRSI in order that we increase our revenue but not at the expense of ordinary working people who suffered so much during this period. Has the Minister drawn conclusions about needing to rebalance our tax system in this way, and making corporations, the very wealthy and financial services pay a bigger contribution in tax rather than having to rely on very high levels of borrowing?