Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I strongly support both of these amendments. The saying goes that what gets measured matters. Unless we are measuring the impact of budgets, those impacts will not matter. It is quite clear that those impacts about which we know anecdotally and from some other independent research simply do not matter to the Government.

When the Government came into power, it promised a new open budgetary process. It spoke about ending the secrecy surrounding the budget and ensuring that all of the facts of the situation, the facts of our economy, the possibilities within a budget and the implications of those would be debated well in advance of budget day.

Unfortunately those promises, like so many others, have fallen by the wayside and, if anything, the budgetary process has become more secretive than it ever was under previous Governments. We now have four people and their advisers calling all the shots in regard to the shape of our budgets. Given the impact of the budgets of recent years, it is clear the people calling the shots on the economic management council are far removed from ordinary people's lives. If they knew anything about the real world, they would not propose or support the kind of measures we have seen in recent budgets.

We were promised poverty proofing but the Government does not want to see or know about the poverty impact of its budgets. It is galling for people to hear the Government boast about the fact that it has not cut basic social welfare rates. That statement is simply not true in respect of the many people over the age of 26 years who are in receipt of jobseekers allowance. It is an insult to those people that the Government boasted their circumstances have not changed. Their circumstances have changed dramatically for the worse, and that in turn is having a huge impact on their families' income. While the basic payment may not have been cut, the majority of people in receipt of social welfare payments are suffering cuts to their family incomes in a range of areas. There was no recognition of the impact of inflation on benefits. Most of the secondary benefits have been affected by cuts, as other speakers noted. The fuel and telephone allowances and other secondary benefits have been slashed, with consequent negative impacts on household income and well-being. Furthermore, the introduction of additional prescription charges impact in particular on older people and families with children who suffer from chronic illnesses. Prescription charges are having a very negative impact on family income. The burden is being shifted onto the poorest, who are being made to pay the price of austerity. The Government has introduced a variety of new charges for waste disposal, property and water. These services had been previously funded from general taxation, which had been fairly progressive until recently, but thanks to this Government the burden of paying for basic public services has been shifted onto the shoulders of ordinary people. The progressiveness that previously existed has been lost as a result of the new charges applying to people irrespective of their ability to pay.

The cumulative impact of no increases in the basic social welfare payment, the cuts to secondary benefits, the introduction of Government charges and new charges for services that were previously funded from general taxation have been very negative for those on low and modest incomes. The Government's refusal to poverty proof its budgets means their impacts on those who are least able to pay are shrouded in secrecy. Outside agencies have to do the work the Government should be doing because whereas the Department of Social Protection previously commissioned the Combat Poverty Agency to examine the impact of budgets, this no longer happens. We depend on organisations like Social Justice Ireland and international agencies like UNICEF for this information. Deputy Coppinger outlined the stark findings of the UNICEF survey on child poverty. That is a shameful legacy of the decisions taken in recent years. The survey covers the period between 2008 and 2012 but as the situation for children has deteriorated since 2012, I presume our position on the league table has dropped.

It is galling to hear Government representatives quote old research to argue that we have a progressive taxation system. In the years up to 2012 the taxation system was becoming increasingly progressive but the reverse has been the case since then. In the context of the kind of poverty that is now exploding onto our streets, whereby many people are barely managing to keep some kind of front together despite desperate circumstances, the longer austerity continues the less they can hold things together by keeping their homes or managing their debt levels. The dam is bursting on all of that and we are now seeing the implications. It is extraordinary that, despite the myriad of social problems now affecting the country, in the first budget which allowed the Government some room for manoeuvre, it decided to cut the top rate of tax. I am not referring to people on modest incomes. The Taoiseach keeps twisting the issue to portray us as saying that people earning €40,000 or €50,000 are rich. The point is that every individual in this country who earns more than €100,000 is being gifted €749 by the Government this year. How on earth can the Minister defend that kind of giveaway to people who, by an large, have been cushioned from the recession and austerity? This Government has decided that the priority is to give money to these people.

There is a mantra from Government that everybody benefitted from the budget. That is simply not true. We know that the better off one is, the more one benefits in cash terms. However, proper poverty proofing of this budget would have revealed that tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people who have incomes of less than €9,000 got nothing whatsoever from this budget.

There are vast numbers of people in those circumstances. The poorest people in this country got nothing from the budget.

I see why the Minister is running away from this and hiding from exposing the impact of what her budgets have been doing, but she promised openness and transparency in the budgetary process. Her budgets over the last four years have brought about a situation where the gap between rich and poor has got much wider-----

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