John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to speak for the hundreds of thousands of people who have been permanently damaged by the current economic crisis and who see no way forward for the next five to ten years. Those to whom I refer are all Irish men, women and children. It is not my intention to castigate the Minister. Since I was elected to the Dáil, I have made a point of trying to be progressive and pragmatic in my approach to dealing with various matters. I recognise the Government was left a desperately bad hand by the Administration which proceeded it.

I am a down-to-earth politician. I am not an economist but I have a reasonable grasp of economic affairs. Since I was first elected as a councillor - I also served as Mayor of Waterford - I have dealt with people on a daily basis. More than 4,700 people have come through my advice centres in Waterford county and city since I was elected to this House last year. I refer here to individuals who visited me at the centres to which I refer rather than contacting me by telephone or e-mail. The majority of these people are desperate. They are unemployed or on low or middle incomes. Among their number are teachers, gardaí, etc., and they all want to know when - or whether - the current crisis will end. The Minister can visit my Facebook page to see the messages they are sending to me.

As the Minister is aware, a huge proportion of households throughout the country are vulnerable. Hundreds of thousands of people face a daily challenge to simply survive. Many of these individuals are only beginning to cope with the ill-thought-out changes introduced in last year's budget. I know the Minister is familiar with the most recent statistics which show that 20% of all adults have no money left once they have paid their essential bills. More than 50% have less than €100 left. People's disposable incomes continue to decrease and the majority of households with which I am in contact are living from week to week. The media uses the expression "the coping class" and defines its members as low and middle income earners. These people are sinking fast. Another recent statistic shows that 29% of all households at risk of poverty are headed by a person who has a job. The statistics to which I refer were furnished by Social Justice Ireland and they are all accurate.

Those to whom I refer are ordinary, hard-working people on whom we were all relying to lead the fight against the recession. They have been consigned to paying off what is termed "negative equity" until they die. I recognise there is not a huge group of individuals who are under-taxed and from whom the Minister might extract an additional €10 billion per annum to save the economy. However, I am of the view - many of us will highlight this fact in the coming weeks - that there are alternatives to targeting lower and middle income earners. We must avoid damaging the economy by - as has been the case up to now - introducing pointless cuts. I call on the Minister to be more ambitious when it comes to making decisions in respect of tackling the budget deficit. He should minimise the extent of any cuts until such time as a decision is made on our bank debt. This is a very reasonable request to make. Ordinary people do not understand the banking system but they are beginning to obtain a grasp on its workings. I suppose we have made the observation so often that it does not have the same impact but these individuals are beginning to realise that they are being obliged to pay for a problem they did not create and that those who did create it and others are not being made to pay. There is a deficiency in the political system at present whereby many of us do not seem to understand that which I have outlined. If we do understand it, we neither want to think nor talk about it.

As already stated, most households have cut out any discretionary expenditure. Many people can no longer afford the luxury of buying a cup of coffee or some lunch. There is little more which can be removed from the economy. People are not spending and those who have any money are intent on saving it. Those who can do so are saving more than their counterparts in other European member states and this is leading to the economy being damaged further. The economy will not grow because if we continue to cut, we will not be able to induce internal spending. There is a question I continually ask. Will the Minister, in the context of the various recessions since the 1930s, identify a country in which austerity has worked and led to economic growth? In America, President Obama has stated that austerity does not work. That is simple economic good sense.

There are hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland who cannot spend because they either do not have the money to do so or they are saving whatever money they possess. How can we encourage economic growth? I will abandon my script at this point. I have been informed by those who own small businesses in Waterford city that people are just not spending. As a result, businesses are being forced to close and the numbers of people on jobseeker's benefit are increasing. I accept that we must reduce our costs and spending. However, it is a fallacy to suggest that we can drive down spending and pay and that the economy will still grow. Such an approach cannot and will not work. What should we do in these circumstances? Should we continue to rely on external investment to rebuild the economy? Such a policy will fail. If I were living outside Ireland at present, I would not invest my money in a public house or restaurant or buy a plot of land. People from abroad are bypassing Ireland and investing their money in Venezuela and other South American countries in which they never previously considered investing. The alternative with which we are left is to assist our local economy by investing in it and by abandoning austerity. The longer we continue to accept austerity as a de facto reality and to be of the view that there is no alternative, the more we will continue to pick away haphazardly at various public services and tax the private sector out of existence.

I will have an opportunity to speak on this matter again and at that stage I will put forward the alternatives I really wish to offer. We sometimes are accused of not offering alternatives. However, I am of the view that such alternatives exist. The Minister could do far worse than to meet the representatives of Social Justice Ireland. I have listened to what these people have to say and am of the view that some of the alternatives they suggest are viable and might just work.

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