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

In a similar vein, I wish to oppose these Estimates and the overall philosophy that lies behind them. I agree with Fianna Fáil that it is suspicious and problematic that we are not having a proper discussion on these Estimates, which are being rushed through in a very short amount of time. We spent a great deal of time talking about tax changes when we debated the budget, but it seems that the Government does not want to discuss spending. This is pretty symptomatic of the Government's neoliberal approach, which might be expected of Fine Gael but is extraordinarily disappointing from the Labour Party. I remind the House that the neoliberal philosophy, having led us to a disastrous pass by generating an unprecedented economic crisis, was singularly unable to steer Europe out of that crisis by moving away from the neoliberal model of low taxes and privatisation towards a model that recognises the need to invest and spend in order to generate the sustainable employment, public services and infrastructure that can form the basis of a decent, civilised and fair society.

I could use the short amount of time available to me to talk about many specific aspects of these Estimates, such as the need to increase health spending radically way beyond the marginal bare increase that has been much trumpeted but is hardly significant at a time when the health service is crumbling. Rather than going into that, I will focus on the extraordinary trumpeting by the Government of what is supposed to be the biggest ever package for social housing. Some of us have been trying to drill beneath the fanfare and the announcements in order to debate the substance of this issue. I found something in the Estimates that completely belies the Government's claim that it has embarked on a major new social housing programme.

I refer to Table 7, which shows that the proportion of GNP to be spent on housing is the same this year as last year and the three years before that, 0.2%. There is no change. The macro economic figure is borne out at local level when someone goes to the local authority, in my case Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, and tries to find out how many council houses will be built this year in the aftermath of the much trumpeted announcement. The council does not have a clue. The number at the moment is 19, which is replicated across the country. Some 19 extra council houses will be built when 1,200 people have joined the list in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown in the past year and we are now at 5,200 people on the list. People are waiting for 15 years and the much trumpeted new housing strategy involves 19 housings. It is a joke. Where is the money? Where is the much trumpeted housing programme? It is a fantasy. The fact that it is fantasy is reflected in the figures because there is no increase in the proportion of public spending on housing.

I have not got my head around the full extent of the jiggery-pokery of replacing central funding for the local government fund with the local property tax, which will be used to fund the housing programme. In fact, there is no extra money going in as a result of the local property tax. Money that used to come from central taxation is being replaced with the local property tax but the overall amount available to build social housing is pretty much the same as it was last year, and the two years before that. This translates into virtually no actual council housing, just a lot of nonsense.

A large proportion of the money is still earmarked to go into the pockets of private landlords in the hugely wasteful leasing arrangements, rental allowance arrangements and the new housing assistance programme, HAP. I will oppose this because it is part of a failed philosophy and an attempt to hoodwink people about what the Government is doing.

See this speech in context