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

There can be no defence for a Minister whose portfolio is social protection to administer these cuts against precisely the people she is supposed to protect. It is as simple as that. The Minister is not doing her job if she visits cruel cuts on young and old, women who have just had children, and those who are sick or bereaved. That is the list which comes on top of last year's list, including lone parents and those in receipt of rent subsidy who are now threatened with homelessness due to the cuts imposed on them by the Minister.

The cut in jobseeker's allowance for young people is a straightforward invitation for youth to walk out the door. That is not just an assertion by the political opposition, it is a simple fact borne out by the CSO's figures which show that 40,000 young people are emigrating annually. The Minister may find it funny that 40,000 people are leaving the country or that it is a handy political escape-valve for a Government in trouble. However, it is a national tragedy that our young, educated people are leaving, many of them never to return. Emigration is robbing this country of the energy, talent and education that could help to get us out of this mess.

To add to the suffering by cutting the bereavement grant to people who have just lost their loved ones is cruel beyond belief. It is disgraceful to take that support away, particularly as the bereavement grant did not even cover a fraction of the cost of a funeral. The cut in the invalidity pension for 65 year olds is a naked grab against the elderly and infirm. It makes no sense and there is no rationale to attack women who have just had children by reducing the higher rate of maternity benefit. It is shocking that 23,000 of the 24,000 people in receipt of that benefit will lose out substantially. The list goes on.

The Government says that it has no alternative. Deputy Durkan says that the Opposition is opportunistic because there are no alternatives to this. We should have a serious debate about that instead of the glib, dismissive and frankly insulting responses we get from the Government. It is true that we can debate and argue over how much tax can be effectively and sustainably levied from big corporations, the wealthy and those on higher incomes. It is, however, preposterous for the Government to suggest that it is impossible.

It should be stated for the public record that there are more household, financial and other assets in Ireland today than there were in 2007. That is a fact. Only in 2008 did wealth go down, but it has been on an upward curve since then. According to the CSO, it is up 3.6% this year to €446 billion in net assets. We know that increase is not in the hands of pensioners, the unemployed, workers who have lost 25% of their income or young people. Neither is it being put into our public services. Who has got this increased wealth therefore? One does not have to be a genius to figure it out. For example, the CEO of the biggest bank in the country is on €800,000 a year. The county manager of Dublin City Council has just had a pay rise, after moving from Dún Laoghaire, from €140,000 to €190,000. Some people are doing very well and it is obnoxious that the Government, and particularly the Labour Party, refuses even to discuss the possibility of some tax on the wealthy and big corporations. Surely that would be fairer.

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