Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I want to take up where Deputy Tom Fleming finished, which is the notion that this Social Welfare Bill is part of the fifth regressive budget in a row. It takes some doing by the Labour Party to stand over five budgets throughout the course of a crisis that managed to increase the gap between rich and poor and, in reality, increase the gap between the rich and the rest and transfer wealth to those at the top of our society. The Government is obviously very keen to sell this Social Welfare Bill and sell this budget as a recovery budget, one that is sensible and one that will deliver stability. The truth of the matter is that it delivers stability and recovery for those for whom there already was recovery, those at the very top of our society, the bondholders, the big corporations and the wealthiest who have managed to increase their wealth by more than 60%, the richest 300 people in our society between 2010 and 2014. For the rest, the majority, all those who have struggled throughout the course of the crisis with job losses, precarity, low pay, poverty and homelessness, this budget offers almost nothing and will not deliver a real recovery for the majority. This budget increases the rich-poor gap in Ireland by an incredible €506 a year. According to Social Justice Ireland, over the past two budgets, the gap has been increased by over €1,000. It comes at a time when the Government is crowing about a full-blown recovery but the figures illustrate who the recovery is currently benefiting and why a majority in opinion polls consistently say they do not feel it.

What people have got at most is crumbs off the table, delivered by a petrified Labour Party looking at the prospect of a coming election. The reality is that people are sitting under the burden of cumulative austerity of over €100 billion in cuts. In this budget, however, €1.5 billion is presented as some sort of giveaway. Unfortunately, it is treated by elements of the Opposition as a giveaway too, when in reality it is nothing of the sort. No real giveaway has been given to those who carried the heaviest burden of austerity and continue to carry it.

Instead, what we have is an insult to most people. There is a €3 increase for pensioners. While any increase is better than nothing, it is measly and is rightly perceived by pensioners as such. The increase of child benefit of €5 is, again, better than nothing, but it will not bring the payment back to pre-crisis levels or even to the same level when this Government came to power. It shows how out of touch with the majority the Government has become, in particular the Labour Party, if it thinks it can sell this as a real recovery for ordinary people. Those who get these extra €3 and €5 increases know it will be wiped out if they choose to pay their water charges. Thankfully, the majority continue not to pay their water charges. These increases will also be wiped out by rent hikes and property tax.

The aim of these increases is obvious, of course. It is to save the skin of the Labour Party as it faces electoral oblivion. However, it will not work because it cannot wipe out the devastation of austerity measures over which the Labour Party has stood. It has created a nightmare situation where 376,000 people live in consistent poverty, twice what it was in 2008. Up to 1.4 million people experience deprivation, an incredible increase of 108% since 2008. Up to 211,000 children, one in six, live at risk of poverty, along with one in ten pensioners. Those people are in poverty because this Government, as well as the previous Government, chose to inflict cuts on working people and on the poorest in society rather than tax the rich or wealthy. That was all the time while saying it was making the hard choices. In reality, the Government made the easy choices which was to protect the Apples, Starbucks and Googles, while going after the most vulnerable.

Unfortunately for the Labour Party, this Social Welfare Bill will not save it. Above all, there is what is not contained in the Bill. There has been a refusal to reverse the cuts in rent allowance. The leading housing agencies have said the number one cause in the rise of homelessness is the cut in rent allowance. That is empirically felt by anybody who has been contacted by those who are homeless. For weeks, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, has spoken about bringing in rent certainty. Once again, however, Fine Gael has beaten the Labour Party into submission rather than take on the vested interests of landlords or of the market. That is no real surprise, however, when 41 Deputies are landlords.

The Labour Party has stood over and implemented policies in social welfare that saw payment upon payment slashed. It stood over the introduction of forced free labour through JobBridge and Gateway. It stood over using emigration as a policy to deal with the unemployment crisis. This budget and the Social Welfare Bill do nothing to change any of that. Rather, they copper-fasten the recovery for the rich and big business.

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