Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

After successive budgets in which tens of billions of euro have been hacked from the economy and public services and after years in which the Taoiseach, like his Fianna Fáil predecessors, dipped his hands into the pockets of low- and middle-income families, this budget was billed as marking an end to austerity. This was to be, in his words, a neutral budget. It is anything but that.

This budget confirms, once again, that Fine Gael and the Labour Party in government are out of touch with the realities of people's lives and cannot grasp the struggle to get by that is experienced by people the length and breadth of the country. Today was the Government's opportunity to give families a break. It was its chance to give real relief to those who have sleepless nights filled with worry, fearful of losing the roof over their heads, of having the electricity cut off or of not being able to buy a winter coat for their child. Time and again the Taoiseach has been told that huge sections of our people are struggling to get by, but time and again he has ignored our calls to cut these families some slack.

Today, the Ministers should have taken to their feet to announce the abolition of domestic water charges. The Government can afford to do that. It can balance the books without inflicting this additional charge on families, but it chose not to.

It is dishonest and farcical to bleat about economic recovery when the Government, in a deliberate and calculated way, levies another charge on families who cannot afford to pay. There is no fear of the Taoiseach having his water supply reduced to a trickle or waiting for the sheriff's knock on the door, yet these are the penalties his Government will countenance for people who cannot pay. How does he stand over this?

The alleviation measures announced today are simply tactical and designed more to spare the Government's blushes than to respond to the realities of people’s lives.

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