Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This amendment simply asks that any budgetary measures that this or any other Government adopts would be assessed for the impact or effect on the most vulnerable sectors of our society. It would ensure that no budgetary measure would contribute to greater levels of inequality. I do not really see how anybody could say "No" to that. Surely any Government, regardless of colour or stripe, should recognise that inequality is something that must be addressed and overcome. That is not just true because inequality is unfair on those who suffer inequality, although that is self-evident and has been particularly the case in recent years. It is almost a cliché now but, sadly, that is because it is true. The most vulnerable people have been hurt most by the austerity regimes. I saw one of those memes on social media yesterday, which gave the definition of austerity as being where the poor pay for the crimes of the rich. That is what happened.

There are 137,000 additional children living in poverty since this Government came to office, which is a shameful indictment of its term. The children bear no responsibility at all for the crash or the policies dealing with the crash, and they should not pay the bitter price for it. Women comprise another big victim group, particularly lone parents. The number of lone parents living in positions of deprivation and consistent poverty has doubled as a result of the austerity measures introduced by this Government. Pensioners have also been hit by cuts to the telephone and fuel allowances, for example. All of these groups have been hit disproportionately by regressive measures like water charges and property tax. The list goes on. Those suffering a disability have been particularly hard-hit. In many cases, these groups overlap significantly, so it is not just one or another of the categories that is hit by austerity, as people are hit on the double and treble by the combination of various cuts and regressive measures introduced.

This is a very fair and reasonable measure if the Government is concerned about inequality. A point has been made before but is worth underlining that there is a very serious strand of economic thought - it is quite mainstream - that argues that inequality is not just wrong but it is dangerous from an economic perspective.

It leads to greater economic instability and arguably it is at the heart of much of the economic instability we face across the world now, such as the stunning gap between rich and poor and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few at the top. That group can, by dint of its control of vast amounts of wealth, destabilise whole economies. Inequality is bad for everybody, but most particularly for those who are at the sharp end of that inequality. The other big area where-----

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