Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The unprecedented popular rebellion seen on the streets in recent weeks was focused on the issue of water but in fact was an accumulation of all the anger and bitterness against six years of injustice and unfairness. Much of this was centred around some of the most vulnerable sections of society being absolutely savaged with brutal cuts. I refer to lone parents, people dependent on rent allowance, cuts to child benefit, back-to-education allowances and telephone allowances and the entire raft of cuts that have been imposed on some of the least well-off people. This has left Ireland in the shameful position in which it has one of the highest levels of child poverty anywhere in the OECD. An incredible 28.6% of our children are living in poverty, which is a shameful situation. The minor concessions, which are a drop in the ocean compared with what has been taken from people over recent years, will go nowhere to addressing this absolutely unacceptable and shameful situation of poverty for huge numbers of people and in particular for children. It does not get any worse than that and a state that cannot protect children and other vulnerable groups against poverty is a state that deserves nothing but contempt.

Any minor give-backs, which go nowhere near reversing the unfairness and cruelties of the past six years, in any event will be wiped out by the introduction of water charges. If for no other reason, I oppose this Bill on the grounds that it is premised on the idea that water charges are coming in when the people have told the Government in absolutely unequivocal terms that they cannot take any more and do not accept water charges. Water charges are regressive by nature and it does not matter at what level one sets them. It does not matter if one sets them at 50 cent as they are regressive, because they hit the least well-off disproportionately compared with the wealthy. Moreover, once one gets them in, that regressive tax will continue to escalate, thereby increasing the unfairness and inequality, as well as the tax injustice in the way in which the tax system works. One message I wish to give to the Minister of State, Deputy McHugh, as he and the Government ponder what they will do in the face of the revolt against water charges, is that nothing will stop this revolt other than the Government scrapping these charges and accepting that Ireland's taxation system and how public services are funded must be done in a progressive way. User charges are inherently regressive. One does not need to be a rocket scientist or a socialist to work that one out. This is what people are saying and beyond that, they seek some fairness in how wealth is distributed, as well as a taxation system that ensures a fairer distribution of that wealth.

Members of the Government often state that Deputies on these benches imagine there is some sort of pot of gold somewhere or that there is something else that could be taxed rather than these measures the Government imposes. However, there is and the Minister of State should read the quarterly reports produced by the Central Bank. I have just read the latest one, which shows there is €508 billion in household and financial wealth here, which constitutes an incredible 13.7% increase since 2012. A new international wealth report has just been published by Credit Suisse showing that in Ireland, the top 1% have 20% of that wealth, that is, of the aforementioned €500 billion.

The richest 5% own over 40% of that wealth. If the Government imposed a 2% tax on the incomes of these individuals, it would raise billions. They would not even feel the imposition of such a tax because their money probably generates more than 2% in returns from that in which it is invested. However, the Government has chosen not to examine the enormous position with regard to wealth listed in the Central Bank's report or to tax a small part of same. Instead, it continues to hit the least well-off. The result of this is that children are living in poverty.

The other result is homelessness. There is a glaring omission in this respect in the Bill before us. Each week I am visited by three or four people who are being made homeless. Just yesterday, I met a woman who had just been made homeless and who is now on the street with her two daughters. They are homeless as a result of the rent allowance caps which have been cut by the Government in recent years. In the context of those caps, there is simply nowhere for families on low incomes to go. The Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, stated that community welfare officers would show flexibility. When one goes in search of that flexibility, on many occasions one cannot find it. People are being told they must find properties to rent for €1,100. There is nowhere in south Dublin which can be rented for €1,100. As a result, families such as the woman I referred to and her two daughters are on the streets. Where are the measures in the Bill to provide increases in the rent allowance caps or extra funding for community welfare officers in order that they might demonstrate real flexibility and help people avoid becoming homeless?

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