Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to what I regard as a most important debate. This is the kind of debate in which we do not often have the chance to engage in the Chamber. The debate relates to the social impact of decisions made in this House. Those decisions are often assessed by way of statistical analysis and involve examining the position of different income groups and categories of citizens. At its heart, the motion involves assessing the impact of budgetary decisions made in the Dáil on the citizens who elected us and whom we are here to represent.

In essence, the motion proposes that any decisions that are made should be evidence based. Decisions which are made in this House, particularly in respect of financial issues, are not so based. Since I was elected to the Dáil in 2007, I have always been of the view that the process relating to the way budgets are framed and how budgetary decisions are assessed is dysfunctional. Budget day has been brought forward from December to October but we are still treated to the "big bang" announcement and the way in which the budget is framed remains the same. Various committees now engage in a series of pre-budget meetings but, to be frank, these represent nothing more than a box-ticking exercise. Like Deputy Donnelly, I am a member of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform. In July we invited a series of stakeholders with an interest in the budget to address us. We heard what they had to say and we may have given the impression that we could in some way shape and influence budgetary decisions. In reality, however, we could not do so. The practice of holding such meetings must be questioned. Members have no input whatsoever not only into the making of decisions but also in terms of assessing the options. That is a fundamental flaw in the way in which budgets are introduced.

This matter does not just relate to how budgets are introduced. The select committees meet to discuss the Estimates for the various Departments when the budget has been agreed. We go through the motions in the context of questioning the relevant Ministers on different elements of the budgets relating to their departmental Votes without having any capacity whatever to change the Estimates. As someone with a financial qualification, I find this a most bizarre way of doing business. However, we continue to allow it to remain in place.

I accept that it will never be possible to achieve a consensus on what constitutes fairness. The motion has at its core the objective of achieving fairness in the way in which budgets are framed by ensuring that they are based on facts and evidence. In addition, the motion calls for a debate on what is the guiding vision for Ireland. This is a matter which the people and the political leaders who are charged with setting out the direction this country should take no longer discuss. When the Taoiseach discusses vision, he refers to Ireland being the best small country in the world in which to do business. In doing so he touches upon but one tiny portion of what constitutes a vision for the country. Such a vision must be based on enterprise and on rewarding those who take risks but it must also be based on the type of health system we want to develop, on equality of access to the education system whereby people from disadvantaged backgrounds will have the same right as everyone else to progress through that system, on seeing to it that adequate social supports are provided and on ensuring that there is a basic threshold of decency for every citizen. The vision for Ireland should focus on these and other issues. We do not debate this matter on a sufficiently frequent basis.

Last week the members of the Select Sub-Committee on Finance debated Committee Stage of the Finance Bill with the Minister, Deputy Noonan. When Report Stage of that Bill was taken in the House earlier, Deputy Pearse Doherty pressed an amendment relating to equality budgeting to a vote. I welcome the fact that there seems to be some movement on the part of Government in respect of this matter. This is evidenced by the amendment to the motion, which refers to a greater analysis of the impact of budgets. The booklet relating to budget 2015 is in no way complete. I accept that it contains an assessment of how John and Mary and Seán and Joan are going to be affected by the budget but it does not capture all of the budgetary measures. For example, the water charges are not included. Last year, the doubling of the property tax was not included. This is because the budget booklet deals exclusively with the decisions announced on budget day. This does not capture the impact of the totality of Government decisions on the citizens we represent. That issue must be dealt with in order that we might engage in a wider assessment. This could be done either by expanding the SWITCH model or by identifying some other way in which we might obtain the type of analysis to which I refer and which is so important.

We must move beyond the situation whereby we are presented with a fait accomplion budget day. If we are to be mature in the context of how we do our business and if we are to implement the kind of reforms people want, then the type of charade which continues to mark the lead-up to budget day - namely, where the Government consistently leaks elements of the budget in order to manage expectations, where it flies kites in order to shape public opinion and where it influences public reaction to the budget - must be brought to an end.

I take issue with many of the comments made by the Tánaiste in response to the motion, particularly when I consider some of the measures that have been introduced by the Government. She is the very person who introduced a certain measure which had a disproportionate impact on women. I refer to the decision taken in late 2011 to change the eligibility criteria relating to the State pension. This involved a fundamental amendment to the average annual PRSI contribution band, which disproportionately affected women who left the workforce in order to raise their families. The decision to which I refer is now beginning to have an impact on many women. I will provide an example. A woman with an average of 30 weeks' worth of contributions per year of service was entitled to almost €30 more in her State pension before the change in question was introduced.

That belies the notion being put forward by the Government that rates were not cut. They were cut but in a very sneaky and underhand way. That measure did significant damage to the future incomes of individuals, particularly women. Owing to the way in which entitlement to the State pension is calculated, based on the calculation of average PRSI contributions per year of service, somebody who entered the workforce for a few years in 1965, left the workforce for 15 or 20 years on getting married and then returned to employment ends up with a significantly lower pension than he or she would have had before the changes were introduced in budget 2012. These are the kinds of measures that need to be assessed because they have a very serious and negative impact.

The changes for single parents have been discussed in the House on a number of occasions. I refer to the welfare supports and one-parent family payment, in addition to the tax relief. Earlier, I raised with the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, the change he introduced last year replacing the one-parent family tax credit with a single-person child carer credit. This took €2,500 out of the pockets of many parents. The overall effect is that many would have to earn double that amount, or €5,000, to have the equivalent of €2,500. These issues need to be taken into account.

My overall view of equality is that people living in disadvantaged areas, including young people, find it much harder to make the breakthrough and make progress in society than such people 20 or 30 years ago. I speak from experience coming from a working-class background. I do not see as many young people from disadvantaged areas and lower socioeconomic groups making the breakthrough today. We must ask ourselves why this is the case. I genuinely believe the gap is getting greater. Those who have access to resources are making great strides and are availing of all of the benefits of living in a modern country where there are still great opportunities. There are others, however, who see few, if any, of those opportunities. That is one of the greatest challenges the country faces, and it will have a major impact on society. Why is it that a schoolchild living in certain parts of Dublin city or Cork city has a much diminished chance of progressing to third level, be it a university or institution offering a post-leaving certificate course? This is an indictment of all of us. We must address the issue because we are simply not getting it right. There is no equality in this country because there is no equality of opportunity. The various schemes that have been designed to help people from disadvantaged areas and those living in low-income households to make progress are not working to the extent that they should. They worked for people in previous generations but there is now an issue that must be addressed.

I am disappointed with the Government's response to the motion. It refers to a number of specifics in its reply and it seems it is missing the broad thrust or spirit of what is being proposed by Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan and others in the Technical Group. The motion is to trigger a fundamental debate on the way we make decisions, the basis on which we make them and how we measure their impact. We are not doing this well enough but we must.

I wish to comment on the priorities of the current Government because the Tánaiste took a number of political swipes at my party. At the first opportunity last month, when the Government had some resources at its disposal, it chose a tax package that disproportionately benefits higher income earners. There is a tax package of €405 million that goes to only one in six income earners – the earners of the highest incomes. That was the priority of the Government at a time when elderly people who should be in nursing homes are lying in hospital. They must wait four to five months to obtain funding under the fair deal scheme to get into a nursing home. This is a time when parents who know that their children have special needs cannot have those children assessed for many months. There are parents whose special needs children have been assessed but cannot avail of the range of intervention services that have been recommended. There are people in need of hip and knee replacements who are waiting four and five years in my city to have crucial medical intervention. That is not acceptable, yet at the first opportunity the Government had when it had resources at its disposal, it decided its number one priority was to design a tax package worth almost €500 million and give it to the top one in six income earners. These statistics have come from the Minister for Finance himself by way of a parliamentary reply. We can absolutely stand over them because they are factual.

The Tánaiste's answer earlier seemed to be that we could give more work to the committees to tease out the impact of budgets. The reform of the committee system introduced by the Government, if one wants to call it reform, has left the system absolutely dysfunctional. The Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, for example, is overburdened with work. It simply cannot cope with it. The committee has 27 members.

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