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

This is the Government’s fifth and final budget, marking the end of this administration’s time in office. It is a moment to take stock of all that has happened since 2011, to consider the Government's record in the round and to assess the winners and losers on its watch. The picture that emerges is one worthy of any Tory-minded administration anywhere in the world.

Those who have borne the brunt of what are euphemistically referred to as "economic corrections" are families and workers on low and middle incomes, people relying on social protection and citizens relying on public services. The big winners have been the wealthiest sections of society, those who believe in low wage or poverty wage competition and those who wish to cannibalise public services for private gain.

Far from offering protection, the Government has exposed families and workers to an obscene jamboree of cutbacks, waiting lists and broken promises, leaving them living from day to day, week to week, month to month just about making ends meet. The Taoiseach promised a democratic revolution but he has presided over a series of democratic somersaults and contradictions that leave this economy and our citizens damaged and vulnerable.

Having made a pre-election pledge of "not another cent" to the bondholders, the Taoiseach made a post-election U-turn proclaiming that he would not wear the slogan of "debt defaulter" on his forehead. It is clear that the slogan of indebtedness will be marked across our brows for many years because of the cowardice and incompetence of this Fine Gael and Labour Government.

A massive burden of odious debt – the debts of bankers, speculators and developers - weighs heavily on this and future generations. All the while, the Taoiseach has busied himself currying favour with the troika and his friend, Chancellor Angela Merkel.

That is his record. The State is now second in the OECD low pay ranks. Huge numbers of workers have temporary, insecure or zero-hour work arrangements, with JobBridge scams to massage the live register. That is his record. Rents are skyrocketing; there are sky high variable interest rates on mortgages; social housing builds are on the floor; almost 100,000 families are in mortgage arrears, while there is a tax on the family home. That is his record. There have been cuts to home help hours, child benefit, disability payments, carer's payments, maternity benefit, the fuel allowance and back to school payments, while there is now a charge for domestic water. That is his record in government.

The Government has created chaos and now wants to talk up recovery, but recovery for whom? In the midst of economic chaos and vicious cutbacks, the wealthiest have still thrived. The wealthiest 250 individuals in the State saw their wealth grow by 16% to €75 billion in the past 12 months. There is no fear for them, yet this is the group that most concerns and most animates the Government. It plays the game of right-wing make-believe that going easy on the wealthy is a necessary precondition for economic growth and shared prosperity. That is a lie. Real recovery will not be possible without the wealthy paying their fair share - no more than but certainly no less than this. It is that simple. Fair taxation is a foundation stone of real, sustainable and shared recovery. Half of those at work in the State earn €28,500 or less. That is where it is at for the average worker. Only the top 5% of workers earn €100,000 or more, including the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, their ministerial colleagues, some of their advisers and those with whom they rub shoulders. Today, the Government has again refused to introduce a third band for individual income in excess of €100,000, in other words, an additional few cent in each euro for those with very high incomes. What is the reason for this? Why is it that in the midst of the worst economic catastrophe faced by the State, the Government has refused in budget after budget to introduce this fair measure? Why did it refuse to make this measure part of the agenda for a fair recovery?

Today the Government has raised the entry threshold for USC to €13,000 and given itself a mighty clap on the back. It is still a very low threshold. It still means that people earning the minimum wage will pay USC. Is that really a fair or progressive move? Is it really a payback for low-paid workers? Sinn Féin's proposal would see all workers earning less than €19,572 taken out of the USC net altogether. Our proposals would see all workers on a new minimum wage of €9.65, an increase of €1 per hour as against the Government's increase of 50 cent per hour, exempt from USC. That would be a real shot in the arm for low-wage workers and their spending power, but the Government is not interested in them. The contrast between the Government's treatment of those on very high incomes and those on average wages is very stark. It has shown no reluctance to levy charges on lower income groups. In fact, it has piled taxes on this group - the majority - with considerable gusto. It persists with water charges and a property tax levied indiscriminately against average and low-income families, pensioners and those with disabilities. It is absolutely indifferent to the hardship, worry and anger these unfair taxes have brought. Does it think tens of thousands came out onto the streets time and again to protest against these measures just for the heck of it? Does it not hear the voices of women and men, young and old, telling it that these unfair charges are taxes too far? The truth is that the Government can afford to abolish water charges and end the fiasco that is Irish Water. It can afford to lift the pressure of the family home tax on families across the board. These measures would represent real relief, a real break and a real sign of the beginning of a fair recovery for people up and down the country.

The Government should be abolishing these taxes today. That is what it would do if it was serious about ensuring a fair recovery. That is what Sinn Féin would do and will do at the first available opportunity. Taken together, these measures would put €443 directly into the pockets of hard-pressed families. The Government's failure to end these unfair taxes reflects the deeply flawed approach to managing the economy and creating shared prosperity. Its persistence with water and property taxes demonstrates its determination to place the greatest burden of taxation on low and average earners. Far from being "progressive" as it claims, this approach means placing a disproportionate burden on people with less. That is its approach when it is all boiled down; it is not that it is against high taxation, save for very high earners. It is not against high taxation per seas it constantly bleats but that it refuses to introduce fair taxation. The fact that the Labour Party has swallowed this agenda hook, line and sinker and now advocates the maintenance of unfair taxation as loudly and faithfully as any of its Fine Gael cronies tells its own tale.

The Government ratcheted up the hype and spin when it unveiled its capital spending plan last week. We saw it all - aggregate figures over long horizons, promises on the never never and the illusion of substantial investment. It was an initiative straight from the play book of the last Fianna Fáil-led Administration. Does the Taoiseach remember how directly before the last general election the then Taoiseach, Mr. Brian Cowen, flanked by Mr. John Gormley of the Green Party, pledged, with much fanfare, a €40 billion capital spend? It never happened. Every year since taking office, the Government has cut capital spending. As has been pointed out by Deputy Pearse Doherty, in its first budget it cut it by €750 million, which set the scene for each subsequent budget it delivered.This had the effect of depressing economic activity and deepening and prolonging the recession. It cost jobs and left citizens with substandard or, in some cases, non-existent services and infrastructure. All of the rhetoric today about capital investment does not disguise the fact that what the Government proposes is totally inadequate to meet the needs of society and the economy. It is the last instalment of Fine Gael and Labour Party voodoo or fantasy, fairy-tale economics.

Just as the laws of gravity, the fact that night follows day and that the earth is not flat are commonly accepted across the population, so too is an understanding that investment is a prerequisite for growth. There is no way around this, yet the Government fails to grasp it. Worse, in fact, it has again cut the capital budget. This is perhaps the clearest evidence that it has no plan. Perhaps that is really what is at the root of this. It has no plan or vision of how to build the economy and our society following the ravages of the economic crash and austerity. It is a clear demonstration that it cannot and will not deliver a fair recovery.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of housing and homelessness. A young man found on Westmorland Street was the latest homeless citizen to die a lonely and cold death on the streets of Dublin. This man and Jonathan Corrie and Alan Murphy before him were the most visible and extreme casualties of the economic collapse, the vicious austerity agendas of the Government and Fianna Fáil before it. The Government expressed sadness and sympathy on the deaths of these three citizens. It is not for me to question the sincerity of these words in the aftermath of tragic loss of life. I do, however, question the Government's understanding of why citizens find themselves in the hopeless despair of street homelessness and its commitment to challenge and overcome the reasons that young man, Jonathan and Alan cowered and so many others cower in doorways and seek shelter in bushes, while many more live lives of desperation in hotel rooms, bed and breakfast accommodation and hostels across the State. Homelessness is mostly invisible and goes recorded as people seek social housing. Every person who sleeps in the box room of his or her parents’ home, very often with his or her own children, who sleeps on the sofa in a friend's place is in reality homeless. The rough sleepers and those on the homeless list are only the tip of the iceberg and it is a very large iceberg. We are, whether the Government acknowledges it, in the grip not just of a housing crisis but a real emergency and it seems that it is content to offer sympathy but not solutions. In its time in office the Government has never offered a viable plan to address the housing and homelessness crisis. Its piecemeal interventions lack ambition and any serious resolve to sort things out. Today’s announcement of an additional €69 million is more to meet the eye than to respond to the crisis. It is a transparent attempt to save the blushes of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, in particular, but it will not wash.

It is hard to fathom the Government's approach to this issue. The Government and the Minister, in particular, have pointed the finger of blame at local authorities, housing charities, social justice campaigners and even at the homeless. It is all bluff, a puff of smoke, all in the hope of distracting attention from the Government's responsibility for the housing crisis, this state of emergency which has happened on its watch. It is responsible for it and today, again, it has failed the test. It fails to commit to even get the first step right. There are 1,500 people homeless, many of whom are sleeping in emergency accommodation. It is a shocking statistic, but it is more than this because behind each of these numbers is real and lasting human and social damage on the Government's watch. We proposed a spend of €300 million on housing next year, in addition to the announcements the Government has made. That is the scale of what is required to begin to get to grips with this emergency. I think the Taoiseach knows this very well, yet he turns his face against it. Instead, today he has chosen not to make this investment. He has chosen more tears, crocodile tears perhaps, but there is to be no serious investment in solutions.

For many, the prospect of having to visit the accident and emergency department in their local hospital is the stuff of nightmares. Overcrowded, under-resourced, stressed-out cauldrons of frustration - that is the popular view of accident and emergency departments. This popular view is based on the reality of a system under which daily trolley counts are the norm. It is based on the experiences of very elderly people. In at least three cases this year people over 100 years of age languished on trolleys for 24 hours or more. It is based on the common experiences of people for whom trolleys were not available, people who felt lucky to be given a chair in the accident and emergency department. There were 7,775 patients on hospital trolleys in June, the highest recorded level of overcrowding in the month of June since the trolley watch count began 12 years ago. That should give us all cause for reflection because it does not augur well for the months ahead. Where is this reality reflected in the Budget Statement? The answer is nowhere. The Government is content to stand still. It seems the chaos in hospitals is now confirmed Government policy. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, expressed great satisfaction with his claim of 1,000 extra posts in the health service this year. He needs to talk to his colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, who has made it plain that some 1,500 nurses will leave the health service in that period and the mathematics of this leads to a shortfall, a loss, not a gain, within the system.

Our budget proposal set out the provision of an additional €383 million in funding to provide for additional nursing staff, consultants, dentists, speech therapists and occupational therapists, to increase funding for disability and mental health services and to increase ambulance cover. The Government's figures today do not represent additional resources for the health service in any significant way. It is simply a case of standing still. Its proposal to extend medical card cover to children under 12 years is electoral politics, pure and simple. It is cynical, too, considering that many seriously sick and vulnerable citizens, including children and young adults, continue to go without medical cards. What about the 13 year old who is very ill or suffers with a disability and the 15 year old with a significant medical need or disability?

It is notable that the Government has done nothing to address the issue of prescription charges. I have lost count of the number of older people who tell me that they now selectively fill their prescriptions, deciding which medicines to skip because the prescription charge is so high at €2.50 per item. Does the Government remember its promise before the last general election to abolish these charges? So much for that promise. It has increased the charge by €2 per item, an increase of 400% in its time in government. Bravo.

Primary and secondary schools face huge difficulties in meeting basic running costs. Their level of capitation grant is woefully low. Teachers and parents across the State go to incredible ends to make up the shortfall and to keep the lights and heating on in schools. They are to be commended for their efforts. Today was the day to increase capitation grants to primary and secondary schools, to VTOS, Youthreach and others, but the Government has failed to introduce this change and leaves the places where children learn and grow to penny-pinch and rely on voluntary contributions from hard pressed parents. It has persisted with its cut to guidance teachers in secondary schools. This was a deeply damaging and misguided cut. It has undermined the supports afforded to young people at a formative and sometimes vulnerable stage of their lives. Teachers, students and parents have made the Government aware of this damage. The Sinn Féin budget proposed a spend of €14.7 million to reinstate 700 guidance posts across the State. The Government should, today, have made that investment in young people.

Since 2011 the Government has presided over a shameful 15% cut in resource teaching hours to children with special needs. This is the cut that every teacher I know identifies as the most vicious and damaging of all. This is at a time when the number of children requiring resource hours has grown substantially, by 8,000 since 2011. The cut has meant a reduction in resource hours for a child, from 5 hours to 3 hours and 45 minutes per week. It is absolutely imperative, urgent and a priority that these hours be restored.

The Government has made a partial announcement today in respect of these resources, but its announcement does not cater for the needs of children and it certainly does not make up the very damaging cut of 15% which it introduced. The Government's job today was to reverse, absolutely and entirely, that 15% cut but it has failed to do that. Former Labour Party leader and later Minister for Education, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, made a whole drama of signing a pledge to abolish third level student registration fees before the last election, or at least not to raise them, a promise which Fine Gael also made. A short time later, ensconced in Government with Fine Gael, the then Minister set that pledge aside and turned it on its head. This Government has, over the past five years, increased student registration fees by €1500. In fact, it has doubled since 2011. That is quite a turnaround, even by the standards of the Labour Party and Fine Gael. The fee places a huge burden on students and their families. It can make the difference between a person pursuing further studies and not doing so.

Child care costs remain a huge drain on the incomes of average families. I hope the proposal to introduce an additional preschool year will address the problems in the current scheme. We know that capitation levels are a problem and that a 38-week year is not sufficient, and we know about the exclusion of children with special needs and disabilities. What is on offer certainly will not be the Scandinavian model of child care so beloved of the Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton. There is no relief on offer today for single parent families. The Government persists with the cuts targeted against these families and its own figures reflect an 18% cut in spending on the one-parent family allowance. They also reflect a cut of some 20% in the spend on the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance and a 17% cut in spending on the back-to-education allowance. All in all, a very bad deal for families headed by a single parent, the very families that we know bore most in respect of the years of austerity, a fact which is clearly reflected in study after study and all the available analysis.

In the course of his opening remarks the Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, invited us to reflect on a journey travelled over the past 100 years, while the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, less epically invited us to reflect on the journey travelled since 2011. I assure both Deputies that, just as the promise of the Easter Rising and the Proclamation for a free, equal and democratic Ireland is deeply ingrained in our collective memory, so too the very immediate recollections of the economic calamity resulting from greed, corruption and crony politics - the effects of a Fianna Fáil-led crash and Fine Gael and Labour Party cutbacks and austerity - still live in the minds of people. The Ministers need not worry; the people are not about to forget. The consequences of their targeting of low and average income families, people reliant on social welfare, older citizens, citizens with disabilities and our Traveller community citizens are real and current and not forgotten. The people are not forgetting and guess what? They will not allow the Government to forget either.

Today's Budget Statement is not about putting right the wrongs of the past. It is about the Government's hopes of winning the next election. Accordingly, the Taoiseach should go to the people. Do not hold off - Joan will get over it. Let the people have their say; let them have their moment and let the Taoiseach stand over this budget, which again favours the haves and turns a blind eye to the have-nots and the public service needs of the State.

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