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

Before the adjournment, I was concluding my comments on this amendment. To summarise, all that is being asked for here is that our budgets should be measured by the degree to which they contribute to equality or greater inequality. It should be obvious why that is a worthy and important thing to do. Recent years, in particular, have seen some of the most vulnerable sectors of our society hurt by an economic crisis which was not of their making. Most notably, more children - 137,000 of them - have been plunged into poverty. Women, particularly lone parents, have also been plunged into poverty.

The impact of austerity has contributed to rent allowance cuts resulting in a growing number of homeless persons unable to provide for a roof over their heads. One can go on through the list. This amendment says that as a standard feature of budgeting we need to have a measurement of budgets based on the degree to which they contribute to inequality or equality as the case may be. It should be done because those who suffer from inequality, deprivation and poverty need to be protected in budgets. This is particularly so when they can be hit by a multiple of different budgetary aspects or even the unintended consequences of budgetary changes. It is right and proper to have an eye to these matters as part of the budgetary process.

Next year marks the 100th anniversary of 1916. If honouring the aspirations of the Proclamation, including "cherishing all the children of the nation equally", is to mean anything, one way of honouring that centenary would be to state that equality is going to be an imperative for all governments in dealing with budgets.

On a macro-economic point, inequality is not just unfair, it is bad for the economy and makes for economic instability. This is increasingly the case across the world because inequality, including the gap between rich and poor, is growing internationally. Ireland is no exception to that trend which is dangerous and makes for an unstable economy and society. For that reason, it should be imperative for this Government to ensure that all future governments would see equality as an important measurement of the effectiveness of any budget.

In his heyday, Michael McDowell said that inequality was good for society and created incentives. That is a load of ideological, neo-liberal claptrap and rubbish. He was, however, honest enough to admit the prejudices of what one might call the economic far-right in terms of this view of a jungle society and jungle economy. If this Government does not subscribe to this view, and I hope it does not, then it should see equality budgeting as something good that would become a baseline for budgets with which all parties would have to comply.

I commend Deputy Doherty's amendment to the Government.

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