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

The Minister hit out at people with disabilities, the fuel allowance, rent supplement, footwear, clothing and back to education allowances, child benefit, hearing aid grants and lone parent support. It is absolutely clear that when talking about protecting the vulnerable, the Minister has done the exact opposite. She has hit every definition of vulnerable group, the disabled, the elderly, children, women and the poor. This is from the Labour Party. It is simply outrageous. At this point, it is time for the Labour Party to take off its political paraphernalia and any reference to James Connolly or James Larkin. James Connolly died for this country in a fight against control by empires. James Larkin died in poverty although he could have become a Minister and joined the club of the Free State. Instead, he died in poverty because he would not sell out. That is the mantle the Labour Party has historically claimed. They have decisively betrayed the mantle in attacking the very people that James Connolly and James Larkin dedicated their lives to protecting.

When faced with this criticism, the Government continues to repeat the mantra that we do not offer an alternative. We have comprehensively offered an alternative. The Government will not answer the question of why it will not put a wealth tax on the €220 billion held by the top 5% of the population. Why will the Government not do that? We say it will derive €10 billion but maybe we are wrong and it will only raise €5 billion. That would cover all of these cuts and even if it raised only €1 billion it would do away with all of the attacks on the elderly, the disabled, the young, lone parents and the poor in the Social Welfare Bill.

I refer to one commitment of this Government, which keeps saying it is in favour of labour activation measures. It has tried to justify some of these attacks as labour activation measures. The transitional payments being cut, the concurrent payments and the income disregards are all aimed at lone parents and are a direct attack on lone parents trying to get back into work or who are working. They are a direct disincentive for lone parents to be in the workforce and they will drive lone parents out of work, out of community employment schemes and back onto dependency on social welfare. Most lone parents work and want to work but cannot survive without the support that the Government is cutting. It makes a mockery of the claim that these are labour activation measures. I ask the Minister to reverse these cuts.

The one lesson we have learned in the past number of days is that people power can change Government attacks. The only reason the Government reversed the disability allowance measure is the fear of public outrage against an attack on the disabled. Lone parents, people on community employment schemes and other vulnerable groups who have been attacked should learn the lesson that protest and expressing outrage can get results. They should get on the streets and force the Government to reverse these cuts. If the Labour Party wants to save itself the trouble of that kind of public outrage, it can reverse these cuts tomorrow.

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