David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

These sectors are as important to housing as home ownership but instead, the Government has decided to treat social housing and rental as secondary options and because of this we have a full-blown crisis. When we invest in social housing we are bringing balance back to the housing market. That is why Sinn Féin would increase capital funding to local authorities by €315 million. That is why we would allocate €140 million to the Housing Agency to purchase housing units on behalf of local authorities. It is also why we wanted to restore the funding for Traveller accommodation to €40 million. I remind the Taoiseach that on the anniversary of the Carrickmines tragedy, it is very important that was done. The very small amount of money provided in the budget today does not go far enough. Sinn Féin also wanted to increase the Housing First response scheme by €24 million.

We hear a lot of lip service paid to Ireland as an entrepreneurial State but we only need to look at our education system to know that this is little more than words. Education has suffered as a result of harsh cutbacks. Supports for children with special needs have been cut so they now have less time with special needs assistants and resource teachers. Student fees have been increased and grant supports have been cut, which means that many third-level students have had to leave their courses. We see this happening all the time. It is an unbearable reality that many families cannot cope with the cost of sending their children to third and fourth level education. We also see far too many of our children being taught in over-crowded classrooms, while school principals struggle to cover the basic costs of running a school. The costs of our so-called free education system are being passed on to parents and these costs present a real burden to lower and middle-income households. Sinn Féin believes that a strong and vibrant education system is essential to our future. That is why we would invest over €450 million in education, both current and capital spend. Sinn Féin would start the prefab replacement scheme next year instead of 2019 as proposed by the Government. We would increase the summer works scheme, and provide investment in the construction of new schools and the reduction of class sizes.

I will now return to the sleight of hand in the budget. When the Minister for Finance presented his figures earlier, he said the additional spending in health was €497 million. In fact it is €266 million. When the Minister said the additional spend in education was €458 million, it is in fact €170 million. When the Minster said the additional spend in child care was €86 million, it is in fact €32 million because demographic changes and public sector pay are included in the figures. It is not additional in terms of what was not already accounted for. This is the sleight of hand we get from this Government.

At the start of my contribution I spoke about choices and about making the right decisions for people and families. When one looks at this budget it is clear that it will not deal with the real challenges facing people. It will not deal with the reality of far too many people who are on hospital trolleys or the record numbers of people on long waiting lists in hospitals. It was not so long ago, when the Taoiseach came in to Government, that a previous Minister for Health said that all patients would be seen within 12 months. The Taoiseach was not able to meet those targets. There was a failure to provide the necessary funding. What did the Taoiseach do in response? He changed the goalposts from 12 months to 15 months. We still have tens of thousands of patients, in all parts of the State, who cannot see a consultant, even within 18 months. We also have record numbers of people who do not have a roof over their heads, people like Karen, about whom I spoke earlier.

Will the Taoiseach consider all of those families and children who are in emergency accommodation and all the children who are sleeping in the front rooms of other people's homes? They deserve homes of their own. They deserve the same opportunities that I have and that the Taoiseach has. I remind the Taoiseach that it is our responsibility to deliver on those commitments. That is what I meant when I said the Taoiseach and the Government are not rising to the challenge. They are not rising to the challenge that these people deal with every single day of the week. The Taoiseach will get his pay rise, Deputies will get their pay rise next year and the year after, but these people need our support and real investment. They need a Government that will represent the interests of ordinary working people, invest in public services, build the homes, abolish the water charges and deliver a fair and just society. They will not get that from Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.

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