Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With budget 2016 the Government has made it clear how seriously out of step it is with the suffering of ordinary people. In this Bill the Minister seeks to give legislative effect to the meagre range of measures she announced in the budget.

The measures introduced in the budget are too little, too late and far too cynical. While I welcome the row-back due to pressure from myself and others, especially those who suffered the consequences of the cuts in social welfare rates, I would be happier if the Government had seen fit to take on board more of the proposals made by me and others on this side of the House and outside it. If those proposals were all taken on board we might have a progressive Social Welfare Bill that would be worth the ink in which it is written.

The restoration of the Christmas bonus is the measure that has been most lauded by those on the Government benches. However, Christmas comes but once a year and there are another 51 weeks. Those weeks have not been made any easier by the small change promised by the €3 to €6 increase in the family income supplement, FIS, the €3 increase in pensions, and the €2 here, €2.70 there for qualified dependants, or even by the restoration of the €5 she pillaged from children in cuts to child benefit over the years of the Government’s reign.

The restoration of the respite care grant is welcome, as is the increase in the period for which carer’s allowance is payable from six to 12 weeks. The Minister challenged us as to whether we would oppose the Bill for the sake of opposition. My record on social welfare Bills shows I have not taken such an approach. I have opposed the use of the guillotine on Bills which ensure all measures have not been adequately discussed but I have continuously welcomed small positive changes and I will do likewise today.

I welcome the tapered PRSI credit proposal, in line with the increased minimum wage. That is something Sinn Féin has sought. Whenever a positive change is introduced we have advocated that it would not be squirrelled away by the Government through tax increases or that it would result in people ending up in a different tax bracket, which ekes away every last cent.

The Government has prioritised tax cuts which favour the most well-off in society over public spending which would favour everyone else. The Minister should have listened to the people. Two thirds of those who were recently polled in what I think was an opinion poll in The Irish Timessaid they overwhelmingly wanted the Government to increase expenditure on public services, housing, homelessness, health, education and child care over tax cuts. That is what the public had to say.

More spending would have redistributed income and reduced inequality but the Government cynically decided to play election politics by throwing crumbs to the masses and favouring their friends with tax cuts. Could the Minister tell me where is the fairness in that? Over the course of the Government’s term in office it did not share the burden of austerity equally or fairly. A total of €30 billion was taken out of the economy in taxes and cuts during the recession. Some suffered greatly and others were protected. The Department of Social Protection cut nearly €3 billion in social welfare spending at a time of increased dependency on social welfare. Those figures alone speak volumes.

One of the central roles of a government is to protect its vulnerable citizens. In fact, the Government did the opposite and made the most vulnerable, the poorest, members of society shoulder the heaviest load even though the parties promised in the programme for Government that it sought to protect the young, the sick and the vulnerable. The Government picked the pockets of those people - from the cradle to the grave. The Government targeted the elderly, the disabled, lone parents, struggling low-income families with children, mothers and young children, jobseekers and the long-term unemployed with the most savage cuts over the course of the four consecutive budgets overseen by it in its term of office.

The Government cut core social welfare rates time and again, despite its denials. It relentlessly cut, cut, cut during periods of severe hardship when the less well-off in society should have had the benefit of the safety net of social transfers. The Government denies that inequality has risen during its term in office, yet in budget 2016 the gap between rich and poor has widened by €506 a year. In two years the gap between the rich and the poor has widened by €1,003 as a result of the Government’s budget decisions.

More than 376, 000 people are living in consistent poverty. That is, almost one third of the population, 30.5%, experience two or more enforced types of deprivation. Households where the head of the household is parenting alone have the highest deprivation rates at 63% and the figure for households with people with a disability is 50%. Approximately one in six children and one in ten people aged over 65 are at risk of poverty.

These figures have firmly put paid to the lie that the recovery the Government has so often trumpeted is fair. Its budget decided to prioritise the better-off and give them the majority of available resources to the detriment of people in poverty. Its income tax changes disproportionately favour those on higher incomes and are of no benefit to the most vulnerable members of society. It even went as far as to create a new tax relief this year for rich aeroplane owners who wish to build themselves a hangar for their aeroplanes. In budget 2016, the Government allocated half of all available resource to tax cuts, thereby eroding the revenue base needed to deliver quality public services to tackle the crises in the health service and in respect of homelessness, housing, education and child care. Services that help the low-paid and most vulnerable, hold their lives together and close the gap between rich and poor have been decimated. Social Justice Ireland, which was not quoted earlier by the previous speaker, has stated, "The poorest 10% in Ireland lost most since the onset of the crisis", yet the Government has cut taxes in this budget that benefit the top 20% of society who also hold 39.7% of the wealth. Where is the fairness in that?

The Government's measly, miserly cuts were implemented year in and year out and the Tánaiste's reign in office has been characterised by punishing the elderly for being old, people with disabilities for being disabled, the young jobseekers who could not find a job because none existed, lone parents for raising their children alone, carers for caring, mothers for having babies and children for being children. I remember when the Government came into office in 2011. It promised to mend the broken economy, protect the vulnerable and build a society based on fairness and equal citizenship. Nearly five years later, it has not delivered on any of these promises but along the way, it has lost its sense of social justice. All Members have seen is the Labour Party doing what the Labour Party does, namely, making promises it does not keep. As the Minister of State's colleague, Deputy Rabbitte has stated, is that not what everyone does during election time?

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