Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will introduce legislation to change that if we get the opportunity. The pay hike came exactly the same week that the Government, including the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor, announced it had accepted the recommendation of the Low Pay Commission that workers on the minimum wage should get a 10 cent increase. How fair is that? Deputies are expecting a raise of over €5,000 and we offer those on the minimum wage 10 cent. It is difficult to find words to describe this paltry and disgraceful recommendation other than to say that it is an insult to workers and a supreme example of the gross hypocrisy at the heart of our political establishment.

This hypocrisy and gross indifference continue when it comes to young people who happen to find themselves on jobseeker's allowance. If Fianna Fáil's phoney concerns for young jobseekers were genuine, it should have raised them while writing the budget for 2017 with Fine Gael. It is a bit rich for Fianna Fáil to be crying crocodile tears now over the tiny increase young jobseekers will seek when it itself had a central role in negotiating and drafting the budget. This is a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael budget; one should make no mistake about that. Fianna Fáil agreed to the budget that was announced this week, including the increase for jobseekers. Perhaps Fianna Fáil has only now realised that this is an issue.

Sinn Féin remains consistent in its call for the full restoration of the jobseeker's payment for all recipients regardless of age. In our alternative budget, we included a €40 increase in the payment for the under-26s as part of the restoration. I did not see this in Fianna Fáil's half-hearted, uncosted so-called "alternative budget". Does that party believe it is acceptable to abandon young people, some of whom are our most vulnerable?

I have first-hand experience of the impact of poverty and the neglect of young people on communities and society. Forty thousand of the young people on the live register are under 26. Of them, 1,625 live in Limerick and are depending on the State for their income. Shame on Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the Independents who support them for producing this pathetic budget.

On the allocation to the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, budget 2017 saw a 10% increase in the Department's capital allocation to bring it to €555 million. This includes €52 million supposedly to support job creation and innovation and assist Irish companies to respond to Brexit. This is simply not enough. As pointed out by a number of speakers already, Brexit is happening now. Jobs are at risk as we speak. Most stakeholders will state the currency challenges and drop in sterling has already threatened 7,000 jobs in the food export sector.

The IDA has received an increase of 22%, bringing its allocation to €137 million, with a view to establishing and progressing advance factories and potentially building factories in Dundalk, Limerick and Galway. That is very welcome but it is merely the tip of the iceberg.

We have a major problem in this country of uneven spatial development with the result that the greater Dublin region is overdeveloped at the expense of the development of the rest of the country. What we need is a major capital investment programme in infrastructure across the whole country. This is not rocket science. For example, we need a proper motorway between Limerick and Cork, which is not mentioned in the Government's budget. This is a critical piece of infrastructure which everyone in Cork, Limerick and the regions says is needed for spatial strategy and spatial building. We also need to know when the much-heralded broadband programme will be rolled out. How will we ever attract foreign direct investment to the regions outside of the greater Dublin metropolitan area if we do not invest in these crucial projects?

I want to put on record my disappointment with the retention of the 9% VAT rate for the hospitality sector. This sector employs some of the lowest-paid workers in the country and is characterised by precarious and flexible - in the worst meaning of the word - work practices. It is now making huge profits yet continues to refuse to engage with the trade unions to set decent pay and conditions for the sector. As detailed in our alternative budget, Sinn Féin would have removed the 9% rate for hotels but left it for pubs and restaurants. In the interest of fairness and decency, the Government should have done the same.

The move to increase the self-employed tax credit is welcome. My party would have gone further, increasing it to €1,300, as detailed in the fully costed pre-budget submission we made. This is a fairness issue, and I am disappointed that the increase represents a dragging of feet on it. The tax credit, like other credits, should be tapered off so there is no open-ended gain for the higher earners.

There are other provisions in this budget that are also found in the Sinn Féin alternative budget. Where the Government does the right thing we will support those measures and make sure they are implemented. When it comes to tax and the USC, the measures announced in budget 2017 fail the test of fairness, fail to help those in need of a break, fail our public services and lay the seeds of another economic disaster. These are the wrong choices and they will further delay job creation and sustainable labour market development.

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