Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

There is no doubt that there can be no economic recovery without a return of people to work. That is a fact. What we have had from this Government is a lot of talk about jobs with precious little being delivered. One could say this budget, like many of the statements from the Government side, is conjury and trickery in terms of on the one hand giving something and on the other taking something back. This Government is robbing elderly people and vulnerable citizens of their medical card entitlements while throwing them the sop of free GP care for under fives. Nowhere is this conjury more clearly demonstrated than in the context of jobs. The Government tells us that jobs are being created while at the same time glossing over the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from these shores. It glosses over and manufactures the figures by hiding tens of thousands of people in schemes. It ignores the fact that there is still more than 400,000 people unemployed and presents a budget which provides for the creation of a miserly 34,000 new jobs. Even if that number of jobs were created - the Government claims that number of jobs were created last year - it masks certain trends.

During the second quarter of this year youth unemployment and unemployment among women increased, the very groups of people which this Government is targeting in this Bill. This has now become a bit of an ideology. Slashing social welfare benefits does not create jobs. As stated by other Deputies the problem with youth unemployment is not that young people cannot be bothered to work or need to be driven out of the country but that there are no jobs. I would like the Minister, Deputy Burton, to respond to those from her own ranks, the economists in the Nevin Institute, who have said that rather than assist in the creation of jobs budget 2014 will result in the loss of up to 30,000 jobs. It makes sense. Everybody can see it.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, introduced the budget and spoke about economic growth while hiding the fact that the domestic economy has been decimated and has shrunk over the past number of years. Taking from people's pockets by way of necessary social welfare payments will not positively alter that situation. The Minister has been challenged by the trade union movement to produce the research which states that lowering social welfare benefits for young people creates jobs. I have not seen it. I would like the Minister to produce it but I know she cannot because it is a fallacy. It does not exist. This is not about getting people back to work. It is an ideological counter-revolution against the social wage and the welfare state, not this new-found jargon of welfare dependency, which I think the Minister has previously referred to as "lifestyle choices" but a crusade against the welfare state, which was when trade unionists and ordinary people fought a battle for an equal and fair society, wherein the state would act as a distributor so that people could have a basic right to health, education, a roof over their heads, a pension when they retire, food on their tables and affordable sanitary services.

The reality is that budget 2014 is the State acting as a distributor of wealth but this time out of the pockets of the lower and middle-income earners and social welfare recipients and into the pockets of the wealthy. We now have one of the most unequal societies in the world. Budget 2014 makes it even more so. That is the view of every organisation which has scrutinised the budget. The reality is that there is no difference between the Tory Party and the Labour Party in Ireland. The Labour Party's targeting of the young people is very much driving their earning, learning and emigration from this country.

As stated by my colleague, Deputy Collins, the title "Minister for Social Protection" should be changed to "Minister for Wealth Protection". The Minister has cut more than was demanded by the troika. There have been no cuts to wealth and corporations are not even to be forced to pay the effective rate of taxation. This Government has pauperised the young, targeted the old, sick and vulnerable and stood on its head the ideology of Connolly and Larkin, the party of whom the Minister is a member.

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