Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It would be easy for me to simply attack budget 2014 without outlining alternatives. Sinn Féin has put a serious amount of work into providing an alternative budget. However, there is much to attack in the budget, such as cuts to medical cards, jobseeker’s allowance, maternity benefits, telephone allowances and housing grants. The meanest cut in recent years is the abolishment of the bereavement grant. The Government has attacked everyone from the very young to the very old. The list is lengthy and the cuts are deep. These cuts will hurt and will be remembered, as will those who inflicted them.

In some sort of irony, the Labour Party manifesto for the 2011 general election stated, "Labour wants older people to be heard in their local communities." What does the Labour Party do two years later? It cuts the telephone allowance for the elderly, which means phones will be cut off in some cases. These often can be the only connection to the outside world for an elderly person, and their personal alarm systems may require a land line. Whatever about Fine Gael standing over a budget of savage cuts, it beggars belief that the Labour Party could endorse and support it.

The budget sees funding for public housing reduced by €700 million from what it was in 2010. To put that in context, the Labour Party supports the cutting of funding for social housing from €780.9 million in 2010 to a miserly €80.9 million for next year. Yet local authority housing lists continue to grow. In previous recessions, Governments of all shades invested in public housing because it gave a return to the State in rent and house sales. This Government, however, through rent allowance and long-term leases, is handing money over the developers and landlords instead. At the end of five or ten years, people who avail of these still do not have a permanent home.

There are now more than 100,000 people on housing waiting lists. The Government applauds itself for having made a once-off €30 million donation to housing from the sale of the national lottery. This will build 500 homes, a mere drop in the ocean. Not happy with that, it has cut funding for housing adaption grants for the elderly and disabled from €80.9 million in 2010 to a paltry €28 million for next year. Funding for estate regeneration has been cut from €203 million in 2011 down to €109 million for 2014. Those residents living in poor-quality, overcrowded local authority housing will have to wait even longer.

It does not have to be this way. The Government, just as in its two previous budgets, had choices. Sinn Féin outlined in detail the budget choices we would have made. Like the Government, we would have made the choice of reducing the budget deficit by €2.45 billion because the State’s finances must be put in order. However, this must be done in a fair way. Our budget would have reached this figure through savings of €1.044 billion and tax measures of €1.4 billion. Sinn Féin, unlike the Government, would reduce the tax burden on low- and middle-income families and would take 296,000 people out of the universal social charge tax net. These are employees who earn the minimum wage. As they do not have any saving power and spend every penny they earn, their wages go back into local businesses and jobs. Any help for this cohort would be good. The Government spoke much about keeping people in employment. It must help those on the lowest income to retain as much of their income as possible. Sinn Féin would abolish the property tax, saving households an average of €278 per annum. We would give 86,000 carers an extra €325 in their respite grant by restoring it to its 2011 level.

Only two years ago the Labour Party stated in its general election manifesto, "Labour sees forced emigration as a stark failure of government, not a solution." Now in government, it is overseeing the highest levels of emigration ever witnessed in the State. This budget will only serve to increase those figures. Sinn Féin would not force more young people on to jobseeker’s allowance. In fact, we would offer every unemployed young person access to a decent job or to real training. We would do this, and more, by reforming the tax system and cutting out waste. Several of our tax reform measures include a new third tax band of 48% on income earned in excess of €100,000, which would bring in €365 million.

We would reintroduce the non-principal private residence charge of €400, which would raise €151 million. We would increase capital gains tax to the level it was at in the 1990s before Fianna Fáil slashed it, which would bring in €98 million. Last week I heard Ministers say this would damage job creation. People on the other side of the House have often bragged about the number of jobs created in the mid- to late 1990s. Some 1,000 jobs per week were being created, so the capital gains tax at the former level of 40% did not have a negative impact on job creation. The Government's record shows that, so it should stop saying it.

This is but a small selection of the many initiatives outlined in our budget proposals. When the spin and headlines have faded, people will be left struggling to make ends meet. Those low- and middle-income families will remember that what the Government did here yesterday, and in previous budgets, did nothing to help them. The Government has made the situation worse by imposing more cuts and austerity on them. The pensioners in rural areas who can no longer call an ambulance or the pensioners in Dublin who can no longer call their GPs will remember who cut the phone allowance. According to the Government's figures, more than 100,000 families will lose medical cards. The families who cannot afford to visit the doctor or buy medicine will remember. The young person who is forced to live on dole of €100 per week, whose choice is between Frankfurt, Boston and Australia, will remember. Our job is to continue to highlight that there are alternatives. I appeal to the Government to examine those alternatives and to allow people to have a decent life in this country.

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