Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I know nothing about a script. I was not reading a script. Sinn Féin Members came to the House with their press office scripts. I am not reading a script; I am giving it as I know it.

This is a good budget. It is not a great budget, it is not the be-all and end-all. It will not create some kind of nirvana society. However, it will finally give a signal of hope to people that the bad times are over. We can finally start to view the economy as something that is not to be feared, but rather something we can harness and use to create the wealth we need for public services and to give people a break in their take-home pay. It is signalling to many people that austerity is finally over and there is a clearer way forward and a brighter future. Those may seem like lofty goals when we are still struggling as many people are. However, it is a clear intent. For a long time the country had a complete lack of hope and optimism, which was hard to grapple with. There was no plan for the how to get there in the future. Could we get there? Was there any way to get around it? Now, finally, we have a pathway forward. The bad times are over and we are getting people back to work. There are a few extra bob that we can put back in people's pockets to make their lives that bit better.

We need to compare where we are with where we were when we first came to the Government benches. I will never forget canvassing in Renmore in Galway and coming across women and men twice my age crying at the doors. They were in bits because they had lost their jobs and because they were in their late 50s or early 60s, they knew they would not get another job. In some cases savings that they had made and scrimped and put together over the previous 30 years had been wiped out, or their child who used to live at home and used to be an integral part of the family had been forced to emigrate. Those were the situations we inherited. We have now reached a point where we can say, "You know what? We're going to give you €3 on the pension. It's not huge but it's €150 a year. We're going to give you back three quarters of the Christmas bonus. It's not huge, but it's 170 quid on your pension. We're going to increase the fuel allowance by €2.50. We're going to put the child benefit back up by a fiver and the respite care grant back up to where it was because we can now afford to do it". Those things matter to people on the ground.

I am not running away from any doors, rather I am out knocking on doors two or three times a week and I get a very good reaction. People are reasonable, they are not stupid and they can no longer be fooled. They know that things are going to be slow and that we have to be careful because what we have is fragile. The last thing they want is to go back to the bad old days where we just splash out on everything, it all collapses like a house of cards around us and we find ourselves in a terrible position.

I welcome the Bill. It is nice to be able to speak on such positive legislation even if it is a bit late in this Dáil to do it. However, it is good that we are able to do something of this nature and to give a little back to people. In future we need to flesh out where we want the social protection system to be. There is still a bit to go in terms of turning into that fully responsive people-centred individual-focused service that gives people the ability not just to draw payments and eke out a living, but to move to an Intreo option and turn it into an enabler, a place people say go to their Intreo office to get training or information on how to upskill in order to get back into the workforce."

When it comes to people with disabilities, our social protection system defines a very broad category of people too widely. It treats with one brush people who have severe to profound disabilities, who will never be able to work, who will constantly be cared for and loved by their families and the State, as well as people who are capable of working and participating. Simply having one payment called disability benefit and not breaking it down into different categories of people and recognising the individuals within it is something we could work on.

When I knock on the doors in Galway and talk to people about this I present it is as good news and the people are receptive to it. It is great to be able to say that the past four and a half or five years have been worth it, that we have got out of the rut, that we are able to start the process of rebuilding, renewing, giving people something back, improving living standards and continuing to reduce inequality. It is an externally assessed fact that inequality has reduced under this Government because we have a very good redistributive system that transfers money from those who can afford it to help those who are least well off, as it should.

I thank the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection for introducing the Bill. I thank the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform for their work on the budget. It is a very good sign and a very good start. Let this be the first of many budgets that continues this trajectory of providing resources for those who need them and giving breaks to those who get up every morning, bring the children to school and go to work.

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