Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will wait for the exodus of Fianna Fáil Members. They might be joining the Minister on the plinth.

Despite all the promises, rhetoric and spin of the past few weeks, what the Taoiseach and the Ministers presented today is the epitome of the boom-bust politics of the past. The cut to the USC and changes to PRSI will put more than three times more in the pocket of someone earning €70,000 a year compared to the average worker. For those earning €25,000, the Minister is giving them €227 annually, yet he has put over €900 back into the pockets of individuals earning over €70,000. How is that fair? By reducing capital gains tax by 13% for some overnight and reducing tax on wealth this Government has hallowed out the tax base for the long term. It has truly stolen Fianna Fáil’s clothes. This is the type of give-away budget of which Charlie McCreevy would have been proud. By reducing the USC in an unequal way, cutting capital gains tax, raising the threshold for CAT and reducing corporation tax the Minister is hollowing out the tax base for the long term and reducing the State’s coffers - in a full year it amounts to €882 million in tax that the Minister believes the State does not need - and he is doing it in a manner that is deeply dishonest.

Nuair atá an tAire ag caint faoin faoiseamh seo atá á tabhairt aige do phinsinéirí nó do thuismitheoirí atá ag tabhairt aire do leanaí le míchumais diana, níl sé ag insint dóibh an fhírinne ná nach bhfuil rún aige na tacaíochtaí seo a chur ar fáil go fadtéarmach, mar sin an rud a tharlaíonn sa pholataíocht boom-bust. That is exactly what happens in boom-bust politics. The boom comes along, followed by the bust. The Taoiseach has set his face against meaningful long-term investment in Ireland’s infrastructure and front-line services. That means his growth policy is not sustainable or credible.

The Minister tells us in his budget documents that his ambition for front-line services is that they make do with what they have, and he stands over a policy to starve the health, education and child care budgets of the resources necessary to deliver public services we can be proud of and that are conducive to growth. Today’s budget holds no resemblance to the Proclamation of 1916 or to the democratic programme of the first Dáil. The Minister has not delivered equal rights and equal opportunities to all Ireland’s citizens. In fact, he has resolved only to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the top 14%. What the Government has done in this budget, cleverly and slyly, is stuff €181.9 million into the pockets of the top 14% through the USC reduction. At the same time, it throws a few crumbs from the table to everybody else.

How is it fair that tax cuts of €182 million are delivered to the top 14% of earners?

Have they been out in Merrion Street or banging down Government doors, calling for the Government to reduce their income tax because they cannot get to the end of the week unless the Government comes to their rescue? Why does the Minister do this when he knows there are so many other needs in Irish society? This is not the type of future the women and men of 1916 envisioned for their country.

In this budget, the Government is attempting to buy the electorate. It has placed a price tag on every man, woman and child in the State. For the child, it is €1.20 per week, for the senior citizens it is €3 and for the average worker it is just below €5. The Government is hoping that self-interest will be their focus. It is hoping they will turn their back on the housing crisis, the health crisis, the homelessness crisis and the fact we have increased poverty. However, the Irish electorate will not be bought, and they are not fools either.

Today’s budget offered the Government a real opportunity to break finally from the failed politics of the last 20 years but, instead, it has copper-fastened it. It has increased the threshold of inheritance tax to €280,000, one of the few mechanisms in the taxation code to capture wealth. Let us be clear about who benefits from this budget. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance talk about the squeezed middle, and we see in the budget who the squeezed middle are in their view: it is those who earn up to €70,000. Let me put a couple of facts on the floor of this House. Some 50% of workers in Ireland earn below €28,500 and 50% earn above it. That is where the middle income is, not at €70,000, where the Government likes to pretend it is. The Government tells us the budget seeks to alleviate the taxation pressure on salaries around €70,000, when what it is in fact telling the people is that the budget is targeted towards the top 14% of earners.

We see this deep inequity in the Irish taxation system. As I said, €182 million of tax reductions are going to the top 14% of earners in the State. We see what the Government has done over the last four budgets, where it has moved taxes away from income and onto flat-rate, indirect, regressive taxes. What we see today is that the bottom 10% of earners spend 30% of their income on direct and indirect taxes while the top 10% spend 29% of their income on direct and indirect taxes. This will only get worse as a result of the budget because the Government is reducing the tax burden on the top 10%. It is because of this deep inequality that Sinn Féin has committed to abolishing the most regressive taxes, in particular the flat-rate taxes such as water charges and the family home tax.

Mar is eol don Taoiseach, tá ceann de na rátaí pá is ísle sa domhan forbatha againn anseo in Éirinn. Tá tearcfhostaíochta agus neamhshláine post le feiceáil go forleathan ar fud an Stáit. Is é an rud is fearr gur féidir leis an Rialtas a dhéanamh, agus é sin i gceist, ná 50 cent a thabhairt do na daoine leis an bpá is ísle sa Stát.

The best the Government could rustle up for the low paid is a meagre increase of 50 cent in the national minimum wage and it remains mute on the need for a living wage. In real terms, there has been no increase in the minimum wage since 2007. The Government did not follow Sinn Féin's call for an increase in the minimum wage by €1 per hour, which would bring the full-time minimum wage to €19,572 a year. We also called for an increase in employee and employer PRSI bands in line with this increase. We support the introduction of the living wage and, in our alternative budget, called for the Government to do the same. As the largest employer in the State, the Government and its Departments should lead the way. We have provided for the introduction of a living wage across the Civil Service and want to see this extended across the public sector, as well as to commercial and non-commercial semi-State bodies.

It is nonsense for anyone on the Government benches to claim this is a budget for families and small businesses. Let us be clear. This is budget for the elites, for multinationals and for high earners. It is anti-sustainable growth, anti-investment and anti-public services. It is also fiscally reckless. Ireland has one of the lowest tax to GDP ratios in Europe. However, not satisfied that the current rate is 33%, the Government wants to continue to decrease that over the next seven years until it reaches a level of just above 20%. That is why we have low investment in public services and higher costs of living. Like Fianna Fáil, this Government has increased out-of-pocket expenses for families and, in many instances, has placed basic services and fundamental needs out of reach for whole swathes of the population.

What more basic need is there than a home? Last week, a little girl was interviewed for a radio segment on family homelessness. In describing her experience of living in a B&B, she said:

I don’t like it here. I’m not looking forward to Christmas. I don’t know how Santy is going to get in, and I don't know where we are going to go.

The interviewer then asked her what it is like in her head when she wakes up in the B&B in the morning. The little girl replied:

Well, sad and worried. And I feel like, bad, cause when you are just going down for breakfast you’re just sitting there with your Da, eating your breakfast with no friends or anything.

This little girl is not alone. There are 1,500 homeless children and their families who are living this experience every day. They live it as we are speaking here, they will go through it tonight and again tomorrow, the next day, and on and on. One in eight children is now going hungry, is without warm clothes, is homeless or is living in substandard housing. After waltzing in here with a book full of measures that hollow out the taxation base and throw a few crumbs in the direction of public services, the Taoiseach and his Ministers should spare a thought for this little girl and for the tens of thousands of children like her. She is the direct consequence of their policies.

What are the other outcomes of their policies? Child poverty has risen under their watch. Income inequality has risen under their watch. Family homelessness has risen under their watch. They have even managed to bring the public health system to a new level of catastrophe. There are record numbers today waiting for treatment, with 401,000 on the outpatient waiting list and 69,000 waiting for inpatient or day-case treatment. We are now used to the fact that over 300 patients per day are left languishing on trolleys, day in, day out. It is the norm for children to wait two years to be assessed by a speech and language therapist. There are 130,000 families on the housing waiting list.

Inequality is the Taoiseach's badge of honour. However, inequality is not just about the most vulnerable in society. It has a deeply damaging knock-on effect for low and middle income families, as well as the wider economy. Let us take the housing crisis. This crisis is a grand culmination of the failed policies pursued by this Government and the last. The Government has abandoned the provision of all housing to the private market, with social housing completions as low now as they were in the 1930s. This astonishing failure has resulted in an upward pressure, not only on supply but on the costs of homes for rental and for purchase. As with so much of Government policy, the Government has failed to deliver a strategy that delivers a solution for all families, be they in need of social, affordable or private homes.

Is féidir na fadhbanna céanna a fheiceáil sa chorás sláinte agus i soláthar seirbhísí oideachais do pháistí le riachtanais speisialta nó míchumais. Tá sé soiléir fosta nuair atáimid ag díriú isteach ar cheist cúram leanaí.

The Taoiseach has no ambition, no vision and no hunger to deliver the type of transformative change that will improve the lives of all our communities. On entering government, the capital budget was slashed by €750 million, and despite the fact there is fiscal space available this year and next year, and a suitable economic environment to increase the tax base, the Government has cut the capital budget next year by €55 million. This is despite the fact there is a housing crisis in the State.

5 o’clock

The Government is cutting the capital budget, but it promised further investment in years to come. We had the glossy launch of the €27 billion capital investment plan, but when it comes to putting money on the table, capital investment year on year will be down €55 million next year. Shame on the Government.

Sinn Féin has set out a very different vision to that of the Government parties and Fianna Fáil.

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