David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is quite obvious that the Taoiseach's Government is not short on numbers. We can see that from his own benches and those of Fianna Fáil. That said, it is short on ideas and vision. The challenges that are faced by our economy and communities cannot be tackled by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance. This is quite clear when we see today's budget. The budget is a master class in spin, sleight of hand and political trickery. It is massaging figures to pull the wool over the eyes of the people again and to cloak its underwhelming characteristics. The Taoiseach and his Government are not capable of seeing past the soundbite economics that brought so much boom and bust to the past, and they do not understand that real, targeted investment in our society and economy is essential to Ireland's future. Today, to hide his blushes and those of the Taoiseach and the rest of the Government, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, announced €4.5 billion in capital investment. In reality, this is only €400 million more that the figure in the 2016 Estimates. As the Taoiseach knows, it is nowhere near enough to tackle the capacity issues in the areas of housing, education, health care and public services generally. It does not meet the needs of our people.

The Minister should note that one cannot announce as new funding that which already exists. Any new investment announced here today is only one third of what my party proposed in its alternative budget, which was costed by the officials from the Minister's Department, some of whom are present today. We have shown what is possible once the political will and vision exist. We have shown what can be done once the soundbites are dropped and the ideas are embraced. Neither the Taoiseach's party nor his agnostic partner in government, Fianna Fáil, cares about ideas. They are simply not capable of the fresh thinking this State needs.

Let me remind the Minister and the Taoiseach that politics is about delivering change and solving problems and about ideas and solutions. The choices we make here today are crucial for people, crucial for families, crucial for communities and crucial for the economy. We must deliver for the people listening in to this debate, the people who have borne the brunt of all of Fine Gael's austerity budgets and the austerity budgets of Fianna Fáil. The Government has failed to do so again today. The choices we make here today are crucial for all those citizens. The test for this Government and all of us here is to deliver for families and working people, and again the Government has failed to do so. This is all about keeping the Taoiseach in office, doing side deals with Fianna Fáil and the Independent Alliance and keeping the Taoiseach's Government and the show on the road. It is not about the future, it is not about vision and it is not about investment in public services. It is about keeping the Taoiseach in his role, and he knows it.

I put the following questions to the Minister sincerely. When he and his Cabinet were putting the finishing touches to this budget, did they consider even for a second the child sleeping in emergency accommodation or the families sleeping in their parents' or grandparents' front room? Did they consider the hundreds of people sleeping rough on the streets in our capital city and across this State? The Taoiseach nods his head but he is not providing the resources to deal with these matters in any significant way. Did they consider the person lying on the hospital trolley as we speak? In hospitals across this State, patients are lying on hospital trolleys, and the Taoiseach tolerates this. He stands over it and will not provide the resources to reduce waiting times. He also tolerates patients having to wait longer than 18 months simply to see a consultant.

We all know that this country has come through a tough time. We know this because the people we represent have borne the brunt of all the bad policy choices of this Government. People in this State saw cut after cut which so severely impacted on their quality of life. We came through a recession that was created by the bad and bankrupt policies of the Fianna Fáil Party. The Taoiseach was a cheerleader for those policies as well, as was his party. I remind him that my party opposed those bad and bankrupt policies then and we oppose the same bad policies and bad choices he makes here today. We in Sinn Féin stand for investment in public services, in reducing the cost of living for families and in decent work and decent pay.

Today our country is at a crossroads. We have choices to make and there are options open to this Government. We face many challenges but we also face opportunities. In our alternative budget, we set out for the Taoiseach what those opportunities are and how we can and should invest in people, families, communities and public services to make sure that those who work on the front line have the resources to provide the public services in housing, health and in all the other areas people need. However, the Taoiseach continues to repeat the mistakes of the past. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, said earlier that all the measures in the budget aim to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, yet measure after measure will do precisely that.

The Government has failed to invest in the future. It has failed to deliver tax fairness. It stands with multinationals over the investment needs of our people. The questions are obvious. Do we take the opportunity to abolish unfair, regressive taxes like the property tax and water charges or do we ignore the democratic will of the people? As has been said, nowhere in this budget is there any provision for the abolition of domestic water charges. On two occasions, we gave an opportunity to the Fianna Fáil Party to vote for the abolition of water charges. It refused to do so, yet it told us that this decision will be made at budget time and on budget day. Here we are on budget day and there is no provision whatsoever to abolish domestic water charges. Here is a party that has done 180 degree turns almost every week on the issue of water charges. It is letting down the people who voted for it and those tens of thousands of people who came out onto the streets in Dublin, in my constituency of Waterford, in Cork and in rural areas up and down this State to demand an end to domestic water charges. The Taoiseach, his Ministers and Fianna Fáil all know that nowhere in this budget is there a provision that abolishes domestic water charges. This shows again that Fianna Fáil speaks from both sides of its mouth.

Do we invest in roads, flood relief, transport and in rural Ireland or do we allow further decline? It is quite obvious from today's budget that the Government is repeating the mistakes of the past by ignoring the need for investment, encouraging an over-dependence on a small number of multinationals and introducing schemes like the first-time buyer's grant, which could again line the pockets of developers and those who build the homes and not those who want to purchase the homes. It is also quite obvious that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are doing what Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael always do, that is, they try to buy elections with promises they cannot keep and then break the economy trying to keep them anyway.

This budget is a product of the Taoiseach's exaggerated and false election promises. He fed the people a line that the recovery was on and that the rising tide would lift all boats. How many times in our history have we heard from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that the rising tide will lift all boats only to find that those boats are never lifted and so many families are left behind? We hear it from this Government all the time, and it never happens. This budget will not lift all boats, nor will it create the fair society we need. The Taoiseach promised in the general election campaign to abolish the universal social charge and invest in public services. He wanted people to believe that he could take homeless people off the streets, build the houses people and families need and put the staff back into our health service and the beds back into the system to make sure that people are not on trolleys or waiting years to see a hospital consultant. At the same time, he wanted people to believe that he could abolish the universal social charge. Of course, he was wrong. It is just not possible to do so.

What did the Taoiseach do after the election, when his policies were not supported by the people and the big majority he had with the Labour Party was reduced? He turned to the architects of the crisis, namely, Fianna Fáil, and the two conservative parties in this State came together. We are told it is not a real coalition. Does anybody really believe that? We are told this is a partnership based on confidence and supply. In truth, this is a temporary little arrangement and a grubby little deal that would make even Charlie Haughey blush. It is about maintaining the status quoand smothering any chance of change. The reason Fianna Fáil would not talk to Sinn Féin, the reason Fine Gael would not talk to Sinn Féin and the reason Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do not want us to be in government was that they knew that we would deliver for ordinary working families and not the wealthy, the elites and the multinationals that do not pay their taxes. We stand for tax justice and investment in people and communities, and that is what members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael cannot tolerate. I am afraid that in this so-called temporary little arrangement, confidence is in very short supply and the Taoiseach needs to take note of that, as he failed to do during the course of the election campaign.

Fianna Fáil is here today, trying, as it always does, to have it both ways. On the one hand, it proclaims in desperation that it is in opposition to the budget while on the other, it attempts to claim credit for what it sees as good in it. This was exactly what we saw from the two Fianna Fáil spokespeople earlier today. The fact is - Deputy Micheál Martin knows this - that Deputy Michael Noonan delivered Fianna Fáil's budget here today. Fianna Fáil is here to support a Fine Gael budget, and that is what it will do. Even if Fianna Fáil Deputies abstain, they will still be supporting the budget.

See this speech in context