Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In my speech on budget 2017 I welcomed the very small and partial restorations of social welfare payments by €5 per week. I also welcomed the increase from 75% to 85% in the Christmas bonus payment. Of course I would like to see the bonus fully restored because I know it is a huge help to social welfare recipients at a very expensive and stressful time of year.

In my pre-budget submission to the Ministers, Deputies Noonan and Donohoe, I called for a more significant increase for pensioners of at least €7 per week, a further increase in child benefit by at least €5 more per child per month and an increase in family income supplement thresholds by at least €5.

I am a member of the Budgetary Oversight Committee of the Dáil and I argued in my pre-budget submission that the estimate of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the ESRI of a fiscal space of €1 billion could be significantly expanded. In addition to ensuring that due levels of corporation and income taxes would be paid to the Exchequer in 2017 through reforms of the Finance Act provisions and greater resources for Revenue, I proposed a number of new revenue raising measures, including the introduction of a wealth tax, an increase in stamp duties on shares until we adopt a financial transactions tax, and I welcome the fact that ten of our EU partner governments are about to proceed with this, and a third rate of income tax for incomes above €100,000. In the event, the fiscal space was expanded, but only to €1.3 billion. I recognise that an important portion of this was allocated to the Department of Social Protection.

The core aim of any social protection Minister, including the incumbent who is not here this evening, should be at least to restore the pre-crash value of social protection benefits and assistance. This was a key target of my independent proposals to the Ministers, Deputies Noonan and Donohoe. Even with the €5 a week increase in sections 6 to 8, inclusive, 18 and 22 of the Bill and a further partial restoration of the Christmas bonus, the total social protection budget in still effectively capped at €20 billion to 2020. The Minister of State, Deputy McGrath, has obviously agreed to this capping of the social protection budget. This budget, of course, represents 35% of total State expenditure and includes spending of €19.854 billion this year on our pensioners, citizens with disabilities and other most vulnerable citizens and families. Social protection expenditure spending is due to rise to €19.9 billion in 2018 and to just over €20 billion in 2019.

The most vulnerable citizens in society suffered most in the eight or nine austerity budgets since late 2008, and the very small partial restorations of some payments in 2016 and 2017 do little to restore the economic well being of these citizens and families. In particular, I believe a higher value must be placed on carers as without them the cost of providing care for our elderly and our citizens with disabilities would increase hugely, although specific figures were not provided to me by the Government. Through parliamentary questions I asked about the cost of financing care. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, did indicate in the reply to a parliamentary question that a €7 a week rise for all State pensioners would cost in the order of €215 million per annum and that a further €5 a week increase for all other categories of social insurance and social assistance was estimated last July to cost about €207 million in a full year. The very minimal package the Minister and the Minister of State would have needed would have cost at least €422 million, but this was not achieved by the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, or any of his colleagues. I also asked for increases in child benefit rates by at least €5 a week and for increases in the family income supplement.

A crucial element of the social protection budget, of course, is the Social Insurance Fund, now standing at almost €10.855 billion or €8.988 billion net of the total €19.6 billion social protection budget. I would welcome a response from the Minister of State in his speech to the current standing of the Social Insurance Fund and the extent to which it is in surplus or has moved back into surplus. The fund has recovered from the devastating deficit at the worst period of the crash after 2008, and I noted in the figures given to us by the Minister on budget day that the net fund shows a 4% increase for 2017. I also note the social assistance estimate has declined by 1% over 2016. These figures remind us that a huge percentage of the social protection budget comes from workers' weekly contributions. Neoliberal economists and journalists always harp on about a €20 billion social protection budget while conveniently ignoring the role of the Social Insurance Fund to which workers and their families contribute. In reality, the two most recent Governments have relentlessly suppressed the social assistance budget to under €12 billion and now have it down to €11 billion, with terrible consequences for the most vulnerable sectors of society.

I welcome the extension of services to all payers of social insurance, including those provided for in section 3, with regard to paternity benefits for class S contributions, section 4, with regard to invalidity benefit and section 9, with regard to dental and optical benefits for employed and self-employed recipients. Section 16 on the inclusion of the transitional period for Romanian and Bulgarian nationals who pay social insurance is also a generous provision. It is unfortunate the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, is not here because I want to take this opportunity to condemn his recent dangerous rhetoric of trying to pit different areas of Irish society against one another. He tried to set the gardaí striking for the basic restoration of their pay against the general public and later social protection payment recipients against public servants such as teachers. Both interventions were singularly unhelpful and create a damaging narrative as part of the fear-mongering divide and conquer tactics that show the worst in politics on what the Minister of State will agree is generally a sad day for politics in our world.

As I have illustrated, the framing of the social protection budget and the construction of the other key budgets of public service provision for our schools, hospitals, security services and civil services is not a zero sum game. Restoration of income for the nearly one third of our people, the 2.1 million people to whom Deputy Connolly referred, who depend on social insurance and social assistance payments is crucial. They are entitled to full restoration while the Minister of State holds his role in the Government. I believe the resources are in our economy to fund a truly fair and humane social protection budget while also ensuring that key public service professions are properly paid and resourced, including the Civil Service. Whatever about the competition for the leadership of Fine Gael, these attempts to set off different categories of society against each other are singularly unhelpful.

I welcome the partial restorations, which will benefit approximately 1.5 million people, but I note they are not scheduled to come into effect until mid-March 2017. As I have previously said, this date should be brought forward to the beginning of the year and commence in January 2017. I hope that sections 18 and 22 will be amended in this regard by all the parties in the House in this regard. I hope the Minister of State brings this back to his colleagues in Fine Gael. These payments assist the most vulnerable in our society and despite our social protection system, Ireland continues to experience high levels of poverty.

I will give an example of which the Minister of State is well aware. The excellent Brother Kevin Crowley of the Capuchin Day Centre in Smithfield, who has been doing invaluable and sterling work in our city centre for years, reported recently that demand for the service is now at the highest it has been in 50 years. Weekly volunteers provide some 600 hot dinners to individuals, families and children, and 1,700 food parcels per week are distributed on Wednesdays. This has increased dramatically from before the recession, when they used to provide about 400 per week. This is happening on the watch of the Minister of State as he is a member of the Government. We can clearly see incredible levels of poverty in this regard.

I echo the comments made by Deputies Gino Kenny, Bríd Smith and Catherine Connolly on the treatment of lone parents and the draconian changes made by the previous Minister, Deputy Burton, which are still having a very detrimental effect on lone parent families, 60% of whom experience at least one form of deprivation. I also echo Deputy Smith's comments on the gross discrimination against women workers when it comes to retirement. The anger people feel after rearing a family for 20 or 25 years and spending 20 or 25 years in work, when they find their pensions are far lower than what they expected, has been brought to our attention. It is clear the 1994 scheme needs to be examined.

A key challenge to the structure and minimal payment levels of our social insurance and social assistance welfare system is that we should look again at the concept of a basic income. Earlier this year, a referendum was held in Switzerland in which a significant portion of the population voted for a basic income. Countries such as Finland and the Netherlands are exploring the concept that every citizen, every child, woman and man, would have a basic income.

Fr. Sean Healy and Social Justice Ireland have run strongly with that idea and it always has been a proposal of the Green Party. Perhaps the Minister can have a look at the proposal again for our own country, to get away from the idea of providing income for a deserving poor and move towards being a country where we have a fair, egalitarian distribution for all our citizens.

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