Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

There is no doubt that the Minister talks the talk but she does not walk the walk. The Bill contains only a few minor positives. It is part of an overall policy of austerity, of making cuts and of forcing middle and lower-income families pay for a recession which they had absolutely no hand, act or part in creating. The previous Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government began the destruction of the social welfare system in this country by launching a direct attack on rates of payment. The current Administration has continued that attack but has done so in a much more subtle, devious and underhanded way by introducing cuts and changes to eligibility across the board.

Since she came to office, the Minister has introduced what I call the "dirty baker's dozen of cuts". She has presided over cuts to child benefit, household benefit, the fuel allowance and jobseeker's allowance; changes to the contributory payments for pensions - these affect women to a much greater extent because many of them were obliged to leave work in order to raise families; cuts to carer's allowance, farm assist payments, the back to education allowance and exceptional needs payments - which hardly exist anymore; an increase in the age eligibility criteria relating to State pensions; the taxation of maternity benefit; and huge cuts to one-parent family payments and rent allowance. The effect of these and of extracting in the region of €28 billion from the economy in recent years - a huge chunk of which came from the Department of Social Protection - has given rise to poverty rates increasing month on month and year on year. There have been significant increases in both consistent and relative rates of poverty. In addition, there has been a huge increase in the rate of child poverty. These are the effects of the cuts introduced by the Department of Social Protection.

There are alternatives and the Government has choices. However, the Government has no mandate in respect of the cuts it continues to introduce. The cuts to which I refer run completely contrary to the promises and commitments those now in Government made in the 2011 general election campaign. The Labour Party stated that things would be done its way and not Frankfurt's way and that it would protect the vulnerable. It also stated that there would be no more money for the banks, that bondholders would be burned and that ordinary men and women would be protected. The opposite has, in fact, proven to be the case. As stated, there are alternatives. There are people in this country who possess significant wealth. The Minister for Finance informed me a month ago that the top 20,000 earners in Ireland have incomes amounting to €7.42 billion. This means that they each take in €371,000 per annum. The wealthiest 5% of people here have personal assets worth of the order of €239 billion. In the past two years, the richest 300 individuals in this country have increased their assets by €5.5 billion.

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