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

Interestingly, now that Members again face an election campaign, the Labour Party is again making promises. Budget 2016, of which this Bill forms part, is another cynical attempt at election game-playing. Can the Minister of State seriously believe the Labour Party can buy off the people it has most savagely cut and consistently targeted over its entire term in office with a few measly crumbs, a carrot, and some shiny baubles? Does the Labour Party really believe the people are willing to be bought off with a fiver here or a few row-backs there? I do not believe that will happen, as Labour Party Members will find soon enough. I have stood before the Tánaiste many times over the last four and a half years and in the Minister of State's case, over the past couple of years since he took office in the Department. I have begged, implored and appealed to their sense of compassion and social justice to reverse almost all the cuts the Government has brought in. It is only now, four and a half years later, that the Government has started a measly row-back and that it is doing so at all is a belated acceptance I was right and the Government was wrong to cut in the first place because in their speeches, members of the Government have admitted these people are the most vulnerable and that this money is spent in the local economy, which it would protect. If this is the case, why did the Government introduce these cuts? It is too late for many local businesses. They are closed because the very money on which they depended and which their customers received in social welfare payments was cut relentlessly by both the present Administration and the previous Government.

While I welcome the reversal of some of these cuts, I and others have seen the devastating impact they had on the ground on the real flesh-and-blood people, who are not figures or statistics, over the course of the last four and a half years. I have met people on a continuous basis, who have visited my office or who I have met on the street, who were in absolute distress. They were in distress because each time they sought hope, they have been hit by further cuts. The figures and statistics also bear out the despondency and need I witness on a daily basis. I have seen many constituents in tears because of despondency and a lack of hope because the present Government, in which they had some faith regarding living up to its promises when casting their votes four and a half years ago, did not do so.

The budget has failed to deliver an increase in the minimum social welfare payment, which has remained at €188 since 2011. Since then, the cost of living has risen and has eroded its value and the value of all social transfers, in effect leaving those dependent on social welfare to fall further behind even as far as the small, if any, recovery is concerned. The Government should at least have restored the buying power of those who depend on the minimum social welfare payments to pre-2011 levels to alleviate some of the hardship caused by the cumulative impact of five regressive budgets and the cuts to services on which they also are dependent.

As the Tánaiste has left the Chamber, I remind the Minister of State of some of the harshest cuts inflicted on the most vulnerable while he and the Tánaiste were at the helm. While the Government had the opportunity to take a different approach, instead of targeting the wealthy over the aforementioned four and a half years, it chose to cut illness benefit, maternity benefit, children’s allowance, the diet supplement scheme, fuel allowance, the household benefits package, the telephone allowance, State pension, respite care grant, bereavement grant, jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker's allowance, to name some benefits and allowances, each of which was cut to some degree. Sinn Féin has shown continuously in its fully-costed alternative budgets that there were alternatives to those cuts. Its priority was to see a reversal in the hardship and deprivation the Government has wrought upon working class communities in particular. Almost five years ago the Labour Party lambasted its current bedfellows with its “every little hurts” campaign. I tell Fine Gael and the Labour Party today that every little cut hurts those who are dependent on social welfare and they are correct in this regard; the problem is that the present Government compounded the cuts made by the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government with its own cuts and went much further in many ways. I believe the people will understand that when the vote comes around again this year or early next year.

As for some previously mentioned cuts that have been implemented by the Government, I note that workers have already paid for illness benefit through their PRSI contributions but even that did not stop the Government from cutting three days' payment or €113 from it. In addition, the Government closed the diet supplement scheme, which had offered social welfare recipients suffering from conditions such as coeliac disease, stroke, throat cancer or motor neuron disease a small contribution towards the additional costs, which were recognised by everyone, associated with their medically necessary diets. As for the fuel allowance and household benefits package mentioned earlier, the Government cut these schemes, on which some of the poorest households including the elderly and people with disabilities depend to heat their homes, by six weeks or €120 in the case of fuel allowance. While the Government has gone a little way towards restoring these benefits, it has not extended the number of weeks back to the previous timeframe and therefore has not restored the benefit to its previous full value. Even with the increase announced, pensioners and those in receipt of social welfare still are down by €54.50. Let Members not forget the Government also imposed a water tax on top of that and for many people, and also imposed a property tax on in case they were getting rich on social welfare.

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