Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This budget has been touted by the Government as being the end of austerity and the start of recovery for the people of this country but, in fact, it is again strengthening the hand of the people who can afford the most. Those who are earning the most benefit the most. What is stark in the budget figures is that it is funding what I would call a wageless recovery where people who cannot increase their incomes are being taken out of the tax net. While I welcome the increase in the universal social charge threshold that takes 80,000 workers off the charge, this means that over 20% of people at work in this country are earning less than €12,000 a year, which is a huge indictment of the Government.

We are thrown the sop of having a low pay commission established in 2015, although that will take a number of years to report. Nonetheless, we see that low wages are enshrined in this economy, which is a minimum wage economy where 900,000 workers do not earn enough to even pay tax. That is what the Government is lauding and promoting as a so-called recovery in our society.

The Government talks about the tax credit for the water charges but this will mean nothing to those 900,000 workers who are not in receipt of the allowance and cannot benefit from it. Those workers who do not pay any tax and do not earn enough to avail of the tax credit will be hammered with the full cost of the water tax next year. The Government makes a big play of the fact the average charge will be €240 for a household next year but if a person is earning enough to be able to avail of the tax credit, that person will receive a benefit of €48 for the year. This tax credit is a whitewash. It is a reaction to the 100,000 people who were on the streets last Saturday opposing this tax and the many hundreds of thousands of people who will continue to oppose this text because it is unfair and unjust. The Government is enshrining that in the measures introduced today in the budget, whereby low paid workers will not be able to avail of the tax credit or of the social welfare benefits which have supposedly been introduced to ease the burden on those workers.

We see the changes for what they are - nothing. They are a whitewash in the context of this unfair tax. Therefore, the people will still need to oppose this tax. They will need to gain strength from this budget because they see that the Government does not care about people on low pay, people on the margins or people who are struggling across society. The people the Government are interested in are those earning very good wages of over €70,000 a year, including all of us in this House, who can afford to contribute more but who are asked by the Government not to do so.

Every year, this Government makes people on lower wages contribute disproportionately more. That is the problem with this Government and it is why there were 100,000 people on the streets last Saturday. They see that the Government was trying to sell us a pup in introducing these changes. The facts are that the tax changes benefit the higher paid, who will benefit up to seven times more than those on the minimum wage - that is a fact.

With regard to the housing crisis, the Government has made much of providing social housing in the years up to 2017 but only 6,700 houses will be provided. In the 1950s, we were providing over 7,000 social houses a year despite being a lot less wealthy than we are now. This will make no difference to the housing crisis and, in fact, things will just get worse. In addition, the Government is beginning the privatisation of social housing provision by introducing public-private partnerships and funding those disproportionately to meet the needs.

For people who are dependent on rent supplement, the social welfare budget has actually provided for a reduction in funding of 14% in rent supplement and of 36% in supplementary welfare. How is the Government going to deal with this crisis? What it is doing will just make it worse and push more and more people into homelessness but it will not deal with the issues. What the Government should have done in this budget is use the tax buoyancy to roll out a proper house building programme which would provide real jobs with real wages for workers in this economy, as well as providing for families who cannot provide for themselves because of the Government's policies.

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