Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Renua Ireland) | Oireachtas source

I have no problem with that. While Deputy Broughan and I may not agree on many things, I absolutely admire and respect his integrity and passion.

The programme for Government made a clear commitment to open up the budget process to the full glare of public scrutiny in a way that would restore confidence and stability by exposing and cutting failing programmes and pork barrel politics. That was the clear commitment of both Government parties and it is one I believed and thought would be pursued. Sadly, however, as we saw in the recent budget, and this Bill gives effect to part of it, nothing could be further from the truth. This is a return to both populism and pork barrel politics and, indeed, to the type of Bertie-nomics that brought this country to its knees. It must be resisted without hesitation on this occasion.

The budget is hugely disappointing and unambitious. We have seen nothing new from the Government in terms of a new economic vision or agenda for Ireland, a vision that will lead us to secure and stable economic and social conditions long into the future. Much of what Deputy Broughan alluded to is absolutely correct with regard to the housing crisis, which both parties in the Government have abjectly failed to address. I might not agree with the proposal on rent controls or rent caps but there is a clear solution to the problem which, unfortunately, the Government does not have the imagination to implement. It is very simple - build more houses. The capital allocations for housing in the budget were paltry. There is no new thinking in terms of new streams of funding to build housing. There still appears to be a huge reluctance to deliver community and social housing through local authorities, which is extraordinary.

My party, RENUA Ireland, was established because we wish to create a clear, stable, secure future in this State for the 425,000 people, or 19% of the labour force, who, as recently as last August, were either in receipt of jobseekers allowance, social welfare support through back to work schemes, in receipt of back to college grants or were participating in a three day working week. We do not have anything close to full employment in the State and we will not have it for a long time if we do not strive to do better, to be more ambitious and to deliver better and more sustainable outcomes for our citizens.

We have proposed a new tax environment, an entirely new way to stimulate growth and investment in the economy. We have proposed a 23% flat tax rate. It is interesting that the Government's commission on enterprise in 2013 recommended a flat tax rate, which the Minister, Deputy Bruton, dismissed as too radical. Clearly, for a Government that has no economic vision anything so radical will be rejected without any scrutiny or consideration.

We believe a number of measures ought to have been introduced in this Bill and in the budget generally. We favour the reinvigoration, expansion and extension of community employment schemes. They really work. They are hugely successful in communities throughout the country, both in urban and rural areas, but they are under-utilised. They are too restrictive. The bureaucracy is excessive and means many people who were in community employment schemes have been forced out of them. That is unfortunate.

There should be increased access to JobBridge. In our pre-budget submission, we proposed to develop greater access to JobBridge and to ensure that certain types of companies can offer better training and development opportunities for people through that scheme. Again, there is no ambition. There is nothing new or visionary in this Bill to achieve that.

Everybody will welcome a €5 increase in child benefit. However, it really sums up the Bertie-nomics approach of this Government, giving a little bit here and a little bit there. It is not a solution to the huge trauma being experienced by families throughout the country, especially in urban areas but also in rural areas, with regard to child care. The average cost of child care in Dublin is €1,000 per month. It is a second mortgage and a huge noose around the necks of families. It discourages people from having larger families and more children. That is morally wrong. It is wrong that people are being punished for trying to balance work with the provision of child care. A €5 increase in child benefit will do nothing for the families that are struggling to maintain a balance between family life and working.

There is a great deal more to be said but, unfortunately, I have been limited to five minutes.

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