Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

This morning the Tánaiste and Minister for Social protection, leader of the Labour Party, had the audacity to suggest the €5 a month increase in child benefit is in recognition of the sacrifices made by families over the past six years. She insults the women and children of this country by putting a value of a paltry €5 per month per child on the six years of savage austerity that they have suffered as a result of the policies of, first, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, and, now, Fine Gael and Labour.

Let us sum up the past six years. The bankers and bondholders who speculated wildly and crashed the economy got a reward of €60 billion. Many of the developers in NAMA, the National Asset Management Agency, who played a major part in the crash get €200,000 plus a year. The women and children, however, get €5 a month. It really does sum up the Government’s priorities and how out of touch it is.

Budget 2015 is a deeply cynical measure, designed to boost the Government’s propaganda offensive of the past six months that austerity is finished, that we are in an era of recovery, that the Government has been vindicated in its actions over the past three and half years of continuing the slavish implementation of the troika diktat. That diktat can be summed up as the ordinary people of Ireland rescuing the European financial market system by bailing out its largest banks and bondholders from their disastrous speculation in the Irish property bubble.

Austerity is not finished, it is embedded in every pore of the public services, in the savage attacks on living standards of low and middle-income workers, in the attacks on social welfare recipients and, shamefully, in many cuts, such as those to the respite care grant. Without blushing, the Government says that in 2015 it will set up by a low pay commission four years into its term of office. It is quite incredible.

To bolster the idea that the Government has brought austerity to an end, we are treated to a few partial reversal measures. They are totally minuscule in their scale and more insulting than anything. One quarter of the Christmas bonus will not even buy the turkey. The budget is deeply cynical and deeply dishonest, especially because the second biggest austerity attack on households in the course of the whole austerity era, in the form of water charges, has totally disappeared in the Government's propaganda. Two major tomes were distributed yesterday by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. Each of them colludes to cover up the reality of what families will face over the next period because of the water charges. Example No. 6 shows the reality of a single worker on the minimum wage, which is a paltry amount to live on. The change to the universal social charge will mean an annual gain of €173. Irish Water says its bill for this single worker will be €176 per year. There is not a word about it in the propaganda tome. I have modified another example to give the reality for families. Where there are two parents, one on €35,000 and one on €20,000 per year, with two children over 18 years of age who may be college students, the net gain according to the Government is €354 but Irish Water says its bill will be €483. That completely wipes it out even with a paltry attempt at a concession. The attack would be much deeper because Irish Water has seriously underestimated the amount of water households will use. I demonstrated that in the facts and figures by comparison with the studies done by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and others. That is why I interjected yesterday when the Minister for Finance was speaking about the minor tax credit for water charges. I said that it would not save the Government. It was directed at the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party but particularly at the Labour Party. The panic measures to try to pretend it is seriously alleviating the burden of water charges will not save the party from the wrath out there in society. The 100,000 people who poured onto the streets of Dublin last Saturday should make the Government afraid. The result of Friday's by-elections in Roscommon-South Leitrim and Dublin South-West should make the Government parties very afraid. The sending of Deputy Paul Murphy, the Anti-Austerity Alliance candidate, to represent the massive opposition to water charges in Dublin South-West is merely representative of the feeling of communities around the country. In January 2015, the Government will face a massive boycott of water charges the length and breadth of this country.

In the 1990s, the Fine Gael and Labour Government faced a boycott and a campaign in half of Dublin. Even then, people power, mobilisation and political pressure forced the abolition of this hated tax announced in December 1996. In 2014 and 2015, the Government faces a revolt at a higher scale nationwide. What will it do when it is faced with hundreds of thousands of householders who correctly see the injustice and refuse to pay? Will Irish Water arrive in estates to turn down the pressure? What happens when communities rightly come out to stop it doing so? Will the Government flood the communities with the Garda Síochána? If Irish Water succeeds, active campaigns will turn on people overnight. The Government will not intimidate people with this method. Will it bring thousands of people to the courts for simple contract debts? Will the Government set up special water courts because it cannot deal with the level of opposition? It will face a general election within 12 months of that date. The smirk will be wiped from the face of the Minister of State, Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, because the Labour Party will be wiped out at the general election if it persists with this unjust and disgraceful new attack on those who have carried the burden over the past six years.

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