Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I remind the House that I never said a word while the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste were speaking. I listened intently to what they had to say because, after all, they lead the Government. I expect the same courtesy.

Against this backdrop, struggling families will hardly notice the extra €5 per month in child benefit which was announced and much lauded by the Tánaiste earlier today. The Government had a choice of either lifting the burden from low and middle earners or continuing to protect the interests of the wealthiest and most privileged sections of society. Instead of reducing the tax burden for the majority of working families, it chose to reduce the top rate of tax. It is a case of tax breaks for the wealthy and water charges for those who are struggling. With this budget, the dismantling of the public health system and its eventual privatisation continues apace. Prior to the recession, the health system was underfunded. After six harsh years of cuts to budgets and staff, the health system is even more starved of resources. We have overcrowded hospitals such as Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda in my constituency. This is despite the skills, ability, commitment and staff of these institutions. Rather than learning the lesson of the disastrous withdrawal of medical cards from people in dire need - medical cards were taken from people who needed them while week after week, month after month, the Taoiseach stood up in the House to say there was no change in policy - the Government has have left hospitals and health services in the impossible position of trying to do more with less. The budget does nothing to address the crisis in the health service and this failure will have negative consequences for patients across the State in time to come.

The chronic housing crisis will continue. Huge numbers of families remain in mortgage arrears and rents continue to rise out of control in the absence of Government intervention to deal with the issue. The Government refuses to introduce rent controls. We will sit all night to reward big bankers and give taxpayers’ money to consultants, but we will not intervene to stop the rackmanism prevalent in much of the private rental sector. Families are being forced into homelessness because the Government still refuses to invest properly in social housing. The measures in the budget fall far short of what is needed and fail to recognise the sheer scale of the housing crisis.

What the people needed and wanted yesterday was a fair budget that would have given low and middle income households a real and substantial break, that would have seen the most damaging cuts of recent years reversed and the deficit reduced through a new and progressive tax policy. Sinn Féin demonstrated, under the leadership of Deputy Pearse Doherty, how this could be done in our alternative budget submission ach mar is gnáth, níor éist an rialtas leis na daoine.

The increase in child benefit must be seen in the context of the cuts to maternity benefit, the lone parent income disregard and the school clothing and footwear allowances. Child benefit was cut in previous years. Despite the Government spin, the budget does not signal the end of austerity. Many of the people who will benefit were never adversely affected by austerity in the first place. Many of them do not even know there was a recession. However, for the vast majority of citizens, it is business as usual.

The Government could have introduced a different budget. Our thoughtful and costed proposals sought to repair the community, rebuild the economy and renew society. We would have put €800 million back into the pockets of ordinary workers through the abolition of the property tax and by stopping water charges. The Taoiseach stated during Leaders’ Questions that he would not do this.

We sought to end the forced emigration of young people by restoring the jobseeker's payment over two years for those under the age of 26 years. We prioritised investment in health and education to make going to school more affordable and to recruit an additional 1,000 nurses and midwives.

We proposed investing €1 billion from the Strategic Investment Fund to build an additional 6,600 homes in the next 18 months and create 8,000 jobs. That is what a real and genuine initiative would look like.

We sought to invest an additional €202.6 million in disability services and supports. That was one of the Taoiseach’s red line issues. When the previous Tánaiste and the Taoiseach were asked to identify their red line issues, the former answered that it was child benefit, while the Taoiseach said it was disability services.

We proposed to reduce the salaries and allowances of high earners in the public sector and the Oireachtas. In short, Sinn Féin offered a way to ease the burden on ordinary citizens and rebuild the domestic economy. We offered a fairer, more equal way forward.

We proposed removing all those earning less than the minimum wage from the USC net, while keeping the exemption for households earning less than €60,000 and with medical cards. In a full year, our tax raising measures would bring in an additional €1.7 billion through a third rate of income tax, restoring capital gains tax and capital acquisition tax to 40%, a 3% betting tax and a range of other measures. However, Sinn Fein’s net tax increase would be just €263.7 million because our measures would see €1.053 billion going back to low and middle income workers. That would not only be the fair and decent thing to do, it would also be economically smart because the people who would benefit would spend the money and thereby stimulate the economy.

We also sought to reverse cuts to the respite care grant. The Government’s refusal to restore the grant left 70,000 carers bitterly disappointed. It is a measly €325 per annum. The Taoiseach gained more in the budget than what the people in question have lost. It is a small amount of money but a lot for the families concerned. Even at this stage, I ask the Taoiseach to reconsider the Government's position. I am sure the people would agree to it in a plebiscite. It would cost the State €29.6 million. We further sought an increase in family income supplement.

Our approach to the economy has to be guided by the principle of equality. The Labour Party is in a maze because it cannot see that it has to equality-proof the measures it introduces by investigating their social consequences.

The Government has lost the plot. It does not care about the crippling effect on citizens and families of the property tax, water tax and a range of other stealth charges. It has been shown the evidence and provided with fair alternatives, but it presses on and dismisses them. The budget is a far cry from the five-point plan.

Citizens were told that political failure lay at the heart of Ireland's economic failure and that to fix the economy we must also fix the political system. The Taoiseach is the longest-serving Member but he has treated the political system with contempt, which I do not understand. Perhaps, he has been here so long he lives in a bubble. Not only has he used all public offices, State boards, the Seanad and other accoutrements for his own party political benefit and the benefit of friends, but this is the very thing he railed against Fianna Fáil doing before him. We have witnessed how he has blatantly ignored the clear statement of the electorate in favour of a radical, reformed Seanad. The Government is now talking of a recovery but struggling families do not see any evidence of it in their daily lives.

Last Saturday in Dublin, people told the Government that there is enough of austerity. The same thing happened in the by-elections. If the Taoiseach thinks for one second that the budget and the Government's selling of it will assuage that expression of public anger, he is badly mistaken. He can be cynical and work out that Fine Gael has such and such a section of the vote and if it looks after it, the others will footer about and get tripped up. He may think that Fine Gael will get back in if it caters to those who fit into its demographic, but that is not what it should be about. That is not what Deputy Kenny's role as Taoiseach should be about. He sits here as Taoiseach, not as Leader of Fine Gael. As Taoiseach, he has a responsibility on behalf of all citizens.

People are demanding very clearly an end to the unjust water tax. While it was Fianna Fáil's idea, the Taoiseach's Government is implementing it. That is the backdrop to the introduction of the reliefs, some of which are modest, that the Taoiseach announced today. The Government has capped some water bills at €100, but why should citizens have €100 less of a water bill they shouldn’t have to pay in the first place? It is like someone stealing one's wallet and giving one a few quid to get back home. Some 856,000 working people will not be able to avail of this cap. The message is very clear and it is that the Taoiseach must scrap domestic water charges. Sinn Féin has shown how a first class water service can be paid for by the State without penalising working people. The Taoiseach can rubbish it all he wants, but he knows it is the truth. If we ever get a mandate for Government, Sinn Féin will abolish water charges as we did in the North. That is what the Government should have announced yesterday. We accept that it is necessary to adjust the deficit and we have shown how to do it without harming families or frontline services by stimulating instead of cutting the economy, and by asking the wealthiest to pay more. If it is a choice between taking money from a carer or a person with disabilities and asking the wealthiest to pay, it is a no-brainer for me. The Government's property tax, water tax, the removal of medical cards, mortgage distress and a lack of social housing have pushed working people to the limit. That is without even dealing with the particular effects in rural Ireland.

Sinn Féin agrees with the Government on lots of things. We agree with the Government that Ireland needs a new start and that the only way to save our country is to change it. We agree with the statements that a new Ireland is needed that is better, stronger and fairer and that political failure is at the heart of Ireland's economic failure. However, those failures lie at the door of the three main conservative parties that have ruled the State since partition, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour. Those who voted for the Labour Party in large numbers at the last general election did so to put a brake on the right-wing, reactionary impulse of Fine Gael. That is what they were asked to do. Alas, that has turned out not to be the case. Labour is as locked into austerity policies as Fine Gael. Where is the €1 billion strategic investment bank that the Labour Party promised? Why is Labour part of a budget process that rewards the highest earners first and foremost? There is a clear failure by Deputy Joan Burton to bring a change of direction to Government budgetary policy and that underlines the truth that a change of faces without a change in policy is meaningless. Many women are in low paid jobs and there is no incentive, initiative or tax breaks in respect of child care. There is no Scandinavian model as promised by the Tánaiste.

The budget fails to lift the burden from struggling families and hard-pressed citizens. It continues to support the basic inequality that exists in this society and that is the Government's legacy. Labour and Fine Gael Ministers will be more than four times better off than a married couple with an income of €35,000, which is a shame on the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. For our part and in our modest way, we will do our best to focus on demonstrating to citizens and families throughout the island that there is a clear, workable and fairer alternative to the way the Government is doing things. We will continue to seek a mandate and win support to take our society and economy in a different direction based on genuine republican principles of equality and fairness.

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