Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

What the budget says to me is that Ministers do not have a clue what it is like to live in the real world. That world is inhabited by so many families, people on social welfare, those who get up in the morning to go out and do their jobs who are earning less money than they did a number of years ago, those with dependent children, and those in need of health care or a roof over their heads. Every year we get a big fanfare about the budget and media hype around what will be in it, but I speak for everyone who managed to stay awake during the Ministers' speeches when I note that it was a somewhat underwhelming experience. Deputy Boyd Barrett called it "crumbs", but in fact it was an insult.

The Government has not even gone a fraction of the way towards undoing its own savage cutbacks, not to mind those of the crowd that went before it. The budget tells me that the Government has no idea of the savage economies people have had to impose on themselves just to stay afloat. Many people behind nice doors in nice housing estates in nice suburbs have not been out for a meal, cannot replace a pair of shoes and are traumatised when their children come home to ask about a school trip. They are worried about their cars breaking down. Onto the shoulders of these people the Government now wants to foist water charges. Even with the paltry €100 given back, those families will still be hundreds of euros worse off. The Government must really think people are stupid if it thinks they will fall for that.

We had to listen to the Ministers puffing out their chests and saying how great they were in dealing with jobs and prioritising getting people off the dole, but the question is what type of jobs those are. Is it the person in my constituency who had to take up a place on the Gateway scheme for €20 a week and ended up paying €15 in PRSI? Is it the young woman who was being paid €2.34 by a multinational company located in Swords for doing a full-pay job, or the man who sits at home waiting for a phone call on his zero-hour contract? Will the Ministers wise up? We live in one of the most unequal societies in the world. We have the second highest number of low-paid jobs, second only to America. We have a system which sees those at the bottom paying the highest taxes through the massive burden of indirect taxation. The people in the middle are being squeezed and those at the top are getting away with it. After today's budget, they will get away with it again.

It was a little sickening to hear the biggest cheers from the Government backbenches that the corporations would be left with their wealth intact, when they do not even pay a fraction of the paltry amount we levy on them. People such as Michael Taft have explained it accurately. We are not even talking about the elephant in the room, which is what he calls taxes on living standards - the massive burden on people because of the State's failure to provide decent public services. These include crèche fees, transport costs, medicine costs and all of the other things. We need more than crumbs. We need to stand on its head the economic ideology of neoliberal capitalism and have a proper State-led investment programme to put people back to work. Of course, the Government will not do that.

The dogs on the street know that the Government has been fatally wounded with its antics of cronyism over the last while, and now with water charges. It thinks honestly that the budget can act as a bandage to patch up its wounds. It has that one wrong. All the Government has done with these minuscule concessions on water charges is to show up that it has been wounded. It should know that the people smell blood and are coming after it. I have been on the streets of the city for decades on various protests, but I have never been on a march like last Saturday's. It was the equivalent of 1 million people on the streets of London. They are not going back. The people liked it. They enjoyed themselves and it gave them confidence and hope, which is something that has been sadly lacking. I received an e-mail from a young woman in my constituency who was on the march. She has a husband and small children and is pregnant. She felt sick and exhausted after walking so much, but she was absolutely elated. In her e-mail she wrote:

I am not scared this time around. I can't afford to be. I've no more to give. I'd love Enda to live off mine and my husband's wages and manage on our outgoings and we do not even have any loans. I am just fed up of managing. Both of us work so we should be able to see something good at the end of the day.

Another constituent texted me when the Ministers finished to say "Budget 2015 - too little, too late. I'll be out on 1 November and there will be twice as many as were out last Saturday."

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