Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

The budget was not an especially bad one as budgets go and I welcomed it to the extent that it went. To a great extent it involved putting a brave face on things after years of neglect and there are glaring omissions from it, especially in the areas of housing and health. The Government is not driven by a vision of a better Ireland. While it tells us we enjoy an enhanced quality of life, it neglects to tell us that the State is more unequal than ever before. Some Ministers, especially Deputy McDowell who is present in the Chamber, believe inequality in society is a useful and good thing, but the sentiment is not shared on this side of the House, certainly not by any Member who is here. While the Government tells us that more of our citizens are in work than at any time in our history, it fails to say we are working longer hours. The eight-hour day is an illusion to those on average incomes who are trying to meet excessive mortgage payments. The Government says we are welcoming and providing for more and more people who are coming to our shores, but it does not tell us that we allow migrant workers to be exploited and bar them from accessing social protections during their first two years in the State despite the fact that they pay taxes and contribute to the economy. The Government tells us more people enjoy a decent quality of life than ever before, but its members should try telling that to the families languishing on social housing waiting lists, elderly patients spending days on trolleys and chairs in hospital corridors and commuting parents, many of whom spend more than four hours a day in traffic, who drop their toddlers in crèches at daybreak and do not see them again until nightfall.

According to the Minister, the budget is largely about two key objectives which are the facilitation of sustained economic growth and improved equality and opportunity for all in society. In truth, the budget is about economic growth and the winning of an election. The 48,413 families on social housing waiting lists will be dumbfounded by the fact that the Government has failed to make provision for their urgent needs in a budget which amounts to a slap in their faces. Expenditure on local authority and social housing programmes will increase by a mere5%, which figure fails even to keep pace with the annual increase in the cost of building houses and purchasing land. Development cost increases run currently at 10%. What hope can people waiting on social housing lists have for the future in that context? Sinn Féin has asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for 12 months whether the Government will accept the NESC recommendation of an increase of 73,000 permanent social housing units between 2005 and 2012. There is no target for the elimination of housing waiting lists nor is there a commitment to deliver the number of social housing units needed.

Given that housing is a basic human requirement, it is difficult to comprehend how the Government can so blatantly ignore the plight of so many in desperate need of it. I have asked myself why there is so little on housing in the budget and how the Government can ignore the plight of some of the most vulnerable in society. I can only conclude that Fianna Fáil, whose policies are decided by focus groups and aimed solely at winning votes, does not include people with social housing needs in its calculations. The crux of the problem is that where Government policies are calculated merely to win votes, the most vulnerable lose out. The Government has written off that section of society which has serious housing needs and has probably made the calculation that those in hostels for the homeless and other emergency accommodation do not vote. Their needs, therefore, will not affect an election outcome. I congratulate the homeless community which has organised itself in the group Street Scene and done a great deal to bring media attention to the ongoing issue of homelessness. This agitation must continue in light of the Government turning a blind eye to their plight.

Groups working with the homeless have expressed their disappointment at the failure of the budget to deliver on housing. The Simon communities have expressed their disappointment that there has been no progress on three actions which would have made a serious impact on homelessness. There could have been an increase in social housing expenditure, an increase in the caps on capital assistance scheme housing and the introduction of a revenue stream to supply formerly homeless people in their own homes.

Parental care for children must be a key element of the child care strategy. We must work to enable parents where it is their preference to care for their children in the early years of their lives. Measures in this area would be of long-term benefit to society. I was deeply disappointed that the Minister for Finance chose not to bring forward proposals on paternity leave. The position of this State on paternity leave is shameful. It is incredible that in this day and age there is no legal entitlement to paternity leave, paid or unpaid — not one day for a new father. It is archaic. This State ranks bottom of the list in terms of paternity leave. Most countries in the EU offer paid paternity leave, from two days in Spain to two weeks in France, while in Norway new fathers are entitled to a full four weeks. Fathers north of the Border are entitled to two weeks' paternity leave, yet in this State there is no entitlement. We need an explanation why nothing was included in the budget in respect of paternity leave.

The other shocking omission was the introduction of pay in respect of parental leave. This Government has not, evidently, grasped the extent to which paid parental leave may be used to alleviate the child care crisis. According to the MORI-MOC survey carried out as part of the review by the maternity leave working group established in 2001, almost 7% of the labour force was eligible for parental leave in that year. Only 20% of those eligible were estimated to have taken up the leave. This is very low and should be of concern to the Government. If it were genuinely committed to parental leave and believed in its benefits for children and parents, it would promote it and seek to encourage maximum take-up.

Payment in respect of parental leave would have made a real difference and progressed significantly the goal of enabling children to be cared for by their parents during the early years of their lives. It would have alleviated pressure for child care places and would have been of enormous help to parents who otherwise would have to put small infants into child care. This is most expensive in the case of children under 12 months who need a higher level of attention. The take-up rate of parental leave in this State is very low. We need to move progressively towards a situation where it is possible for a child to be cared for by one of its parents at home up to the age of three.

I want to touch on a number of other issues such as why the Government did not get rid of tax breaks for private hospitals. In effect, taxpayers will continue to subsidise private health care. A perfect example is an application for a private hospital near Dundalk in my constituency which was dealt with by the local authority. Effectively, the taxpayer would have funded the capital cost of the provision of a private hospital, equivalent to 15% in each of the six years, with 10% in the final year. We are told the taxpayer is offered services by the private hospital sector in return for such generosity on the part of the Government. That is so, but at what price?

To take one example, the cost of public renal dialysis for patients attending at the Beacon Clinic is €68,000 per year per patient. That is the private sector. Just across the Border, at Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry, public sector patients, who are there because of the lack of capacity in this State, can be catered for at a cost of €49,000 per patient per year, 41% less expensive than the private sector. How is this good value for taxpayers' money? How is the Government being responsible or caring of the health of the people of this State? Surely this is a perfect example of how the Government, as with the housing situation, should develop our public services and provide the necessary level of service for people while preventing the rip-off in the private sector. The Minister should address this issue in his reply.

Another example is the fact that the employee PRSI ceiling is regressive and my party seeks its abolition. This view has been supported by the Department of Social and Family Affairs, which stated in 2002:

Abolition of the ceiling would make the employee PRSI system more progressive. The current system is regressive in that those over the ceiling pay a smaller proportion of gross income in PRSI than those earning under the ceiling. Both receive the same benefits. Abolition of the ceiling would, therefore, strengthen the social solidarity element of the system in that a proportion of all income would be pooled for the benefit of all contributors.

In a submission to the tax strategy group on 28 September 2004 in respect of PRSI issues, the Department of Social and Family Affairs stated that the abolition of the employee ceiling would, "address the criticism that the employee contribution system is regressive because those over the ceiling pay a smaller proportion of gross income in PRSI than those under the ceiling". My party calls for revenue raised for the social insurance fund from this proposed abolition to be used for the introduction of pay in respect of parental leave. There are many other issues which I would like to deal with but, unfortunately, time is against us.

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