Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today, the Minister could have announced or indicated a reversal of these cuts. If the Minister was committed to a real and fair recovery, that is precisely what he would have done. He might also have indicated the reinstatement of dedicated supports for Traveller children and non-English speaking children. Does the Minister remember that he abolished those supports in their entirety? The Government broke the Labour Party promises to third level students not to increase fees. In addition, the capitation grants for third level students and those in further education were cut.

The big claim of this Government, and the Minister, Deputy Howlin, repeated it again today, is that it protected social welfare entitlements. That is simply not true. Child benefit was cut. Young people’s jobseeker's allowance was cut. The invalidity pension was cut. Most shocking and cruel, the respite care grant was cut by €325. The Government intends to carry on true to form. Come July, in excess of 30,000 single parent families will no longer qualify for one-parent family payments. These families will experience a real cut in their living income.

The Tánaiste, who introduced these cuts, promised that no change for single parents would come into place until such time as "safe, affordable and accessible child care is in place, similar to what is found in the Scandinavian countries". She went further, pledging,"If this is not forthcoming, the measure will not proceed." In case the Ministers have not noticed, there is no such child care provision in this State. Yet the Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton, is hell bent on introducing this cut anyway. Why has the Government not abolished this measure? Will there be a dividend for single parent families? Are they not worthy of protection? Is the Tánaiste not prepared to keep her word?

We have a real crisis in this State as regards low pay. According to the OECD, this State has the second highest levels of low pay, just behind the United States of America. The Government's approach to tackling this epidemic is both timid and limited. The Low Pay Commission is welcome but its remit, as we in Sinn Féin have argued, is far too restrictive. A Government with a plan for a fair and real recovery would task this commission with dealing with low pay in all its dimensions. It would task the commission with moving in a planned way to establishing a living wage at a decent threshold for all workers. Instead the Government has limited and restricted its terms of consideration to the minimum wage, which is a big mistake and which sums up the Government's minimalist view of what low income families and workers, in particular, can expect or are due in its grand new era of economic recovery.

There has been a lot of speculation about the restoration of public sector pay and the "unwinding", as the Minister terms it, of the emergency FEMPI legislation. Workers in the public sector have taken a substantial hit in their income and there is no doubt that many of them are in real hardship. It is wrong to imagine that all public servants or civil servants are in overpaid, cushy numbers. That is far from the truth. It is equally true to say that there are some in the upper echelons of the public and civil service who have traditionally been overpaid. The crucial point about reinstating public pay and people's take home pay is that we must start at the bottom. We must start with those workers, some of whom receive family income supplement because they exist on poverty wages. These are State employees and yet they are so badly paid.

The Minister has previously indicated that he envisages such pay increases in percentage terms. I suggest that this might not be the most effective way to target the reliefs and benefits at the lowest paid. What would certainly be totally unacceptable is any suggestion that the high paid, dare I say overpaid, minority at the top should receive any pay increase. I include in that the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, Ministers, Deputies and Senators. There can be no question of pay increases for elected officials while the Government persists with its agenda of cuts and while we still have the utterly scandalous level of poverty wages in the public and private sectors.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, made some pretty outlandish commitments on job creation when he spoke earlier. He committed to pass the 2 million people in employment mark next year and to replace all of the jobs lost during the downturn by 2018. He is making the assumption that the Government will be in office to do so. In total, between 2015 and 2020, the Minister committed to adding 200,000 new jobs. That does not tally with this Government's record to date. Some 69,300 net new jobs have been created over the past four years. Some 26,900 of these were created in 2014. Bearing in mind those figures, Fine Gael and the Labour Party would have to improve its record in job creation annually by 50% to meet those targets as announced. On the basis of their previous track record, that does not look hopeful.

I am also disappointed to see a marked lack of ambition in respect of job creation via the IDA and Enterprise Ireland. Their results have not been spectacular; rather, they have been extremely underwhelming. For a Government that states repeatedly that it puts work and the opportunity to work at the heart of its agenda and the recovery, this is most alarming.

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