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

In the face of the worst housing and homelessness crisis in the history of the State, an absolute disaster in the public health service, a chronically under-resourced education system and a crisis in our infrastructure on a whole range of levels, this economic statement is pathetic. It does not even get close to providing the resources and the investment necessary to deal with the dire problems our society and economy are facing.

In the name of economic prudence and stability, the Minister, and Fianna Fáil before him, sacrificed the people. The human and social hardship of that is well known in homelessness, poverty, deprivation, people waiting years in pain for vital operations, as well as children with special needs not being able to get assessments, a crisis that rolls on even when they have passed the legal requirement to have those assessments made. At all sorts of levels, human beings are suffering.

Even in the Minister's own narrow terms of economics, the chickens are coming home to roost, however. The social pain and sacrifice that the Minister inflicted on human beings are causing even the Government a major economic problem.

The Government cannot get the workers to stay in the country to employ them in the health service, even though it is trying to recruit them, because it slashed their pay and because it cannot provide an affordable roof over their heads. The Government cannot provide for the housing needs of citizens now, and there is no prospect of it being able to do so in the future with the level of investment going into housing.

The chickens will come home to roost in education when the quality of our education is being degraded by a lack of investment and the high pupil-teacher ratio. There is also the wider infrastructure of public transport, broadband and renewable energy resources that could reduce the cost of energy in this country. Against this background, the famous fiscal space of €500 million is pathetic. It just does not go anywhere near what is needed. This means all those crises that are not just a social problem but an economic problem are going to get worse and the Government will be in serious trouble in a few years, as if it is not bad enough for large numbers of citizens as we speak.

The Minister will respond to all this by saying it is easy to criticise, but what is the alternative, we do not have the money and this is the best we can do. We seriously need to start having an honest debate about this. The elephant in the room of the Irish economic story is that during all of those years when human beings were suffering, profits went through the roof.

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