Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My expectations for the budget were not great and I spent most of the afternoon semi-bored and disillusioned at the usual mantra. Having listened, however, to Deputy Wallace and his forensic annihilation of what the Government calls a housing strategy, I consider that it should be compulsory listening for every Minister. I challenge every Minister to come back to Deputy Wallace and answer the points he made. This country is on a hiding to nothing in the area of housing when citizens spend the overwhelming majority of their income, if they have one, to try to keep a roof over their heads and older citizens find their houses full again with adult children and grandchildren as families try desperately to save a few bob to buy a house. Others are ending up in hotel rooms and the like. It is an absolute scandal. Deputy Wallace was also correct and in no way flippant when he noted that the nation's spirits will have been lifted far more by last night's victory in soccer than by anything in this budget. When did a budget ever transform the lives of people? It is fine for the Taoiseach to stand up and say this will not be a bonanza and that we will be responsible and careful. It is good for him that he has the luxury to be careful because being careful means defending a status quo which represents a life of severe challenge for huge numbers of our citizens.

The Government may say it is great for spending €1.2 billion but that must be looked at in the context of the last three budgets which cut the tax base by €2.6 billion. As such, the Government has not even got back to where it started to cut. Nothing in this budget will address the fundamental problems in the State which are caused by the fact that we tax less and spend less than practically every other European country. We are completely out of kilter in that regard. Unless we address that, the problems faced by people will continue to occur. The Government must ask itself whether it thinks people will really be going out tonight saying it is great that they have an extra fiver. The first thing they will say is that it is not actually a fiver but is in fact €2.50 over the course of a whole year. However, that does not sound as good. Therefore, the Government decided to call it a fiver and start the payments more than halfway into the year. It is sickening. Even if it were a fiver, which it is not, €2.50 is not going to put a roof over someone's head and give them access to healthcare or a decent education. Sadly, we have missed that opportunity in this budget.

Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the election of Countess Markievicz, the second female Cabinet Minister anywhere in the world. We had a Proclamation in this State which issued a call to Irish men and Irish women, yet Irish women are being left behind again in this budget. That is why I want to look from the viewpoint of a number of women and young girls in my constituency. They are not exceptional and I am sure their stories are echoed and repeated in every corner of the country. Let us talk about Zoe who is ten years of age and has a rare genetic disorder, PKU, which means her body is unable to break down certain amino acids. The only treatment for PKU is Kuvan, a drug which could vastly improve her quality of life and prevent her from potentially suffering brain damage. This drug is sanctioned and available in most European countries. In Ireland, it is not. Let us talk about her mother, Karen, who has spent years fighting a daily battle and having to tell the story of the struggle she endures to ensure her daughter has the same quality of life as other children. Let us talk about Maria, a woman in my area who has split from her partner. She is a part-time worker who looks after her son. Her former partner does not pay maintenance but she has religiously kept up the payments relating to her half of the mortgage. As she cannot pay the whole thing, however, the bank is moving against her.

Let us talk about Claire, whose mother-in-law is 58 years of age and is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Because she is under 65 years of age, there is nothing by way of support for the family. Her husband gets three hours of help a week. She is unable to wash or dress herself and has lost her ability to focus. She cannot see people or things in front of her or read or write and she gets lost in her own house. Nevertheless, her family gets three hours help per week. Home is the best place for that woman but her family needs support to keep her there. As her daughter-in-law says, it is heartbreaking to watch a strong, independent and glamorous lady become vacant and lost. They grieve every day for the person she once was while knowing that every day she gets further away from them. How many other families are in that position while we sit within these comfortable walls?

Let us talk about Mary. She began her working life in 1966 but had to give up her job because of the marriage bar. She raised three children and went back to work at 49. At 65 years of age, she went to claim her pension but because she had worked as a younger woman, she found her PRSI stamps would be calculated over 47 years. That meant she would only get a third of her contributory pension.

If she had not worked until 1998, she would have received the full pension. It is an absolute joke that these women, who were discriminated against by the marriage bar and on whom the State relied for caring duties, are being penalised in their latter years. Has the budget done anything for them? It has not delivered access to health care, decent pensions and a roof over their heads. I do not say that to make a cheap, political point. It has not because the Government failed to tackle the root problems in this State. It is not that Ireland does not have enough resources; it is that those resources are concentrated in a small number of hands. Government after Government has chosen politically not to go after the wealthy in our State. That is a political choice. The Government hides behind the fact that there are fiscal rules. It will not declare a housing emergency because it does not want to upset the fiscal rules but it, and the European Commission, have no problem upsetting them when the leprechaun economists come up with a 26% jump in GDP. They ignored that figure and there was no problem breaking the rules in this regard. When it comes to dealing with housing, they say, "Oh, no, we are good boys and girls; we do not break the fiscal rules".

The problem is the budget does not introduce measures to repair the structural damage of austerity and the hollowing out of public services, which, if not addressed, will cause continuing and accelerating problems for our citizens. The Government needs to spend and tax more. Squeezing a few bob here and there from the middle will not make the pot bigger. The Government has to go after those who are not contributing. Tax on wealth in this State is an average of €278 per person less than the EU average. If the Government raised wealth taxes even to the EU average, it would have an additional €1.3 billion. Employer's PRSI is well out of kilter with other member states. It is among the lowest in the EU. If it was increased to the EU average, the Exchequer would have an additional €8 billion. If it was increased by only 2%, an additional €1.4 billion would be generated. A total of €2.4 billion is foregone in tax reliefs on pensions, half of which goes to the top 10% of taxpayers. If the Government even put a cap, as Social Justice Ireland proposes, on the reliefs at 20%, it would have an additional €414 million per annum, which almost equals the allocation for early child care years provision. It is a small change, which could yield significant results. The Government decided not to touch the tax relief for the hospitality sector. There is an argument relating to small restaurants, coffee shops and so on but it is absolutely scandalous, against the backdrop of the amount generated by hotels for accommodation in cities all over the country, not to have increased the VAT rate in this regard. This would have generated an extra €200 million. That is without even considering the issue of corporation tax. Let us be clear - it has been studied and evaluated by EUROSTAT and other organisations - that the effective rate of corporation tax is approximately 6% with many of the larger companies getting away with paying 3%. Social Justice Ireland has stated that if the Government ensured the effective rate was 6%, it would generate an additional €1 billion. Small and medium-sized Irish companies generally pay the 12.5% rate.

The Government has dressed up the most spurious measures in the budget to deal with housing and land banking. Deputy Wallace has annihilated them already but even if he had not gone through all the loopholes in respect of the vacant sites tax, it has been put off for two years. The rates will be 3% and 7% but the value of land increased by 14% last year and, therefore, there is no incentive for people in this regard. The Government talks about tackling real estate investment trusts, REITs, but the reality is that the budgets introduced by former Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, ably assisted by the Labour Party, mean that REITs are one of the prime reasons the property market has been distorted with them accounting for 62% of new home purchases in Dublin and 44% nationally in the first four months of this year. The CSO has stated that one third of all residential properties were sold to investors in the first seven months of this year. They are renting them back to the people they outbid to buy them at exorbitant rents. There is nothing in this budget to deal with the issue of affordability. If the Government parties want to raise the living standards of citizens, they must tackle the systemic structural problems, which would mean investing another €2 billion in our education system, for example, to bring the State up to the per-pupil EU average. That is doable because the resources are there. Our economy would benefit but the Government chooses not to do this.

The Minister bragged about how he will provide an additional €685 million for health services. A few years ago, the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, warned about the dangers of austerity and cutting investment in our health services. It told us them it would take decades to repair. Many hospitals are in poor condition while public waiting lists are unmanageable, with recent estimates of 700 people on waiting lists for minor treatment, which is absolutely scandalous. It is an untenable situation where somebody would have one cataract operation but must wait for three or four years for the other. What about the number of people who have had to beg and tell their private personal stories to access health care, to ensure their child gets medical treatment abroad, to access to fertility treatment in order that they have the child they desperately want? The amounts the Government is throwing into the system will not address that. Cutbacks do not only affect people's health; they come at a cost to the State. Last year, the State paid out €256 million in awards and legal claims and €65 million in legal fees with 87% of that being spent by Tusla and the HSE. The estimated cost of settling outstanding claims last year was €2.2 billion because our health service, in the main, is unfit for purpose. It is not even about the human cost; there is an enormous cost to that. Nowhere is that more graphically illustrated than in our maternity services where between 2007 and 2015, €66 million was spent on legal fees and €282 million was paid in damages. The Minister for Health allocated €3 million extra to implement the new maternity strategy. That demonstrates that the sums are not adding up and how the Government is setting the State on a path that will ensure it pays out billions of euro in compensation and legal fees, not to mention the personal devastation those decisions will wreak on citizens who lose loved ones and so on.

Working people would benefit more from wage increases rather than the pittance in tax cuts that have been proposed in the budget. More wages means more tax, which means more money for public investment. Unless the Government addresses the issues of precarious employment, continued insecurity and so on, they will not be dealt with. Against that backdrop, consider the cynical manoeuvring by the Government, for example, in trying to frustrate Deputy Cullinane's Banded Hours Contract Bill, which would give a modicum of security to people on zero-hour contracts. People currently employed in large retail stores are waiting for Members to legislate in this regard. Instead of taking legislation which has been through the House and could have altered their lives, the Government has tried to block it and come up with a much more watered-down version. That is not on and, sadly, it affects women disproportionately because they are in the most precarious employment.

No initiative has been taken to recognise the huge volume of unpaid work that goes on in this State. A study conducted in Britain demonstrated that the equivalent of 56% of British GDP was accounted for by unpaid labour such as caring and child care. A similar study needs to be conducted in Ireland in order that we can evaluate the fully the challenges that face people in accessing the labour market. Blunt measures should not be introduced to drive lone parents into poverty under the name of "labour activation". The Government parties have taken €45 million out of the pockets of lone parents and the result has been a 50% increase in the numbers in consistent poverty.

Some 65% of the homeless are lone parents. The Government can make an announcement about more money going into child care, but there must be a transformation of child care from a poorly regulated, market based scheme to a fully available public service, as there is in other jurisdictions such as Denmark where, as a result of the state providing child care in a similar way to how we provide school education, it has the fifth highest level of female participation in the workforce in the OECD. They are the types of initiatives we should be considering.

One can bandy around figures, and we all do it, and it can sound good but when it trickles down into the real lives of people it has a tendency not to be that good. We are doing many things wrong. Consider our prison service, on which we spend hundreds of millions every year. In many cases, people who are spending tonight in prison are people who previously, perhaps, would have been in a psychiatric hospital and would have had support for the other problems they have or they are people suffering from drug problems whose addiction causes them to blight the communities in which they live. However, what do we do for them? We expensively lock them behind a prison door and do not deal with the issues that caused them to be there in the first place, such as the systemic poverty and the dislocated backgrounds most people in prison come from. Instead we have a scenario where, according to a report produced this week, there were 8,500 drug seizures in the 14 Irish prisons in the last seven years. We have cut €1 million from drug treatment facilities in the prisons, yet the people who are going into the prisons have addiction problems that cause them to carry out crimes, which is a further cost on society. It costs nearly €70,000 to keep a woman in prison for a year. However, 90% of women in prison are there for the short term, for non-violent, minor offences. When a woman goes to prison, unlike, in the main, when a man goes to prison, she often ends up losing her home. Her children must be cared for by the extended family or go into care in other jurisdictions. The cost to society, both in the short and longer term, is immense.

We are not examining any of these issues. We throw a couple of million here and 100 million there to get a headline or news flash and then go home and forget about it. There are systemic problems in our State and they come back to the point I made at the start, that we consistently spend less and tax less than most of our European Union peers. It is a fact. It does not mean that the ordinary citizens who cannot get by now should be fleeced. They should not. The figures show that in the case of consumption taxes and so forth, which are incredibly regressive and affect the poorest people in the State, Irish people pay €200 per head more than their European peers. The poorest people in Ireland pay way more than their peers in Europe, but the richest people pay way less than their peers. Unless we bridge that gap the problems we have will continue, including the inadequate access to health care, education and decent pensions and, critically, the fact that there are people on the streets tonight who will not have a roof over their heads and that families will be obliged to share accommodation intergenerationally and with strange families. It is like a return to the years of the tenements. Sadly, nothing in this budget will address that.

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