Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will speak on the Bill and the budget of which it is an integral part.

The Minister says that anybody voting against this Bill is voting against the improvements for the poorest and most needy in society. The Minister’s speech seems to consist largely of praising herself for giving back a part of what she has already taken from those people. I do oppose this Bill but I support the improvements, the €3 per week, the increase in the fuel allowance, the restoration of the respite care grant, the increase in child benefit, etc. I oppose it because it is an integral part of the Government’s fifth regressive budget in a row.

If anybody doubts that I take myself as an example. I am here, courtesy of the people of Limerick city, in a very well-paid job, earning €87,500 a year, €1,700 per week gross. I did a small calculation and the budget benefits me to the tune of over €900 per annum. I have a very good friend who is in receipt of social protection payments. He lost his job when a business closed down in Limerick about two and a half years ago. He has had some part-time employment since. He has had various periods of unemployment and is now unemployed. He is a single man in receipt of €188 per week, paying rent to Limerick City and County Council. He gains, according to my calculations, €95 per annum, approximately a tenth of what I gain as a highly paid Deputy. The only word I can conjure to describe that is "regressive".

Prior to the budget, there was a huge income differential between that gentleman and me. Now it has increased to the tune of approximately €800 per annum and I understand that, as a result of the Lansdowne Road agreement which will kick in from 1 January, I will gain another €1,000 with the result that the differential between that gentleman and me will be €1,800. An unemployed couple will gain €157 per year, whereas a couple with two incomes, with a gross income of €125,000, will gain over nine times as much, or exactly €1,408 per annum.

The Minister referred to the benefits for the lower quintiles of the population. Last year, the last period for which official figures are available, the top 10% of households were in receipt of 24% of all disposable income, whereas the bottom quintile, the bottom 10%, received 3% of all disposable income, exactly one eighth of that of the top 10%. The gap has widened as a result of the budget and this Social Welfare Bill and I am only talking about income. If one takes into account the fact that access to, and control of, capital is exclusively within the preserve of the upper echelons of society, the gap between rich and poor has become dangerously wide.

When he refers to the social welfare provisions included in the budget, the Minister for Finance usually treats us to some poetry, but he did not quote any this year, no doubt worried that we would be reminded of what he said last year when, inspired by Robert Frost, he promised to travel the road less travelled. There has obviously been a change in attitude and now he is travelling the road marked, "How to win a general election". I will fill the deficit by quoting a famous Irish poet, Oliver Goldsmith:

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

The Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, referred extensively to what she gave in the budget. Yes, there was an increase of €2.50 per week in the fuel allowance, but the allowance is now paid for only 26 weeks. According to what I learned in arithmetic class, €2.50 multiplied by 26 comes to €65. The Minister has reduced the period for which the fuel allowance is paid from 32 weeks to 26 and €6 multiplied by 20 is €120. Having taken away €120, she has given back €65 and praises herself for it.

I support the increase in child benefit, but I also recall the election posters during the last general election promising faithfully that the Labour Party would not reduce child benefit. In fact, it did reduce it, the reductions causing a great deal of misery and hardship, made directly contrary to promises it had made and which it had advertised from one end of the country to the other. The increase in child benefit, allied to that granted last year, will bring us almost but not quite back to where we were when the Government took office.

Several years ago, when the respite care grant was reduced, we warned the Minister of the consequences, of the hardship and misery it would cause, but she proceeded anyway. Now, in the shadow of a general election, she has decided to restore it. I would like her to clarify one point. The name has been changed to the carer's support grant. As I understand it, people who are not in receipt of carer's allowance can still qualify for the respite care grant if they do not, for some reason, qualify for carer's allowance.

See this speech in context