John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Acting Chairman should watch those 20 seconds. It is interesting that we have heard expressions such as "quality of life" and "enriched country", as well as how good this country is to live in. I have always believed that a country should be judged by the quality of life of people living in it. There are guiding principles in this respect. It is interesting that Social Justice Ireland has argued that the Government should be guided by the principle of protecting the needy and vulnerable. We must ask who are the poor and vulnerable. The Technical Group has been accused of using disproportionate arguments but all our statistics emanate from data made available by the Government; these include Central Statistics Office figures and so on.

The most current of these relating to poverty in Ireland is the survey conducted by the CSO and published in April 2014. Chart 4 on page 2 of that report indicates, using the EU poverty line set at 60% of median income, that just over 16 from every 100 people were living in poverty. This does not include a percentage of people above this who are on the poverty line or just above it. From the statistics we can see that 750,000 adults and 220,411 children are living in poverty. Social Justice Ireland, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Money Advice and Budgeting Service and other organisations have been at pains to point out that another 300,000 or 400,000 could be added to the figure who are on the poverty line or just above it. In other words, these people have no quality of life.

It has always been at the core of labour party ideology throughout the world to protect those who are most vulnerable. These are people on low incomes and who are less well off. Labour and the left have always had guiding principles and beliefs in fairness enshrined in policies and directed towards disadvantaged people in society. One can consider the statistics from when labour parties were in power in England, Norway or even in South America and across the world: irrespective of how bad an economy was, those labour parties have been able to deal with disadvantage, decrease poverty levels and increase quality of life for those less well off in society. It is interesting that the only party which has failed to do this is the Irish Labour Party.

I do not find it fun to criticise anybody who might be perceived to be on the left of politics and it is unfortunate that the left is divided. There are some very good people both within and outside the Labour Party. The statistics are there nonetheless. Very many people have found themselves abandoned by some trade unions, pillars of society like the church and the major political parties. These people rely on those of us on the left or those with a conscience who recognise fairness. We want to do what is right for those who are less well off in society and are the only ones to which these people can turn. Those people feel they have been abandoned particularly by the party which was supposed to stand by them and made the promises that those who are less well off would be fine.

I do not know who said that the poor will always be with us. That may as well be enshrined in a constitution for the next election as the Government has left us with 750,000 people and 225,000 children in poverty and another 400,000 on the poverty line. It would not matter who came to power when we consider what people would have to deal with. We can check what labour parties have done in Europe and across the world and at the very least they tried to look after those less well off in society. The current Government has not done so.

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