Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We do not oppose everything announced in yesterday's budget. We argued for some measures, including reduced class size, the increase in the national training fund levy, increased welfare payments and additional gardaí. The Government will have the Labour Party's support for these measures.

However, some of the choices the Government made yesterday were deeply flawed. Using property revenues to reduce income tax seems to be a return to Charlie McCreevy economics and a dangerous direction to head down. As was stated earlier, no public home construction has been provided for in addition to what was announced earlier this year. The new measures to which the Taoiseach referred all relate to the private sector and no affordable housing scheme has been provided for to ensure homes will be affordable for low and middle-income earners. There is no vacant homes tax and, therefore, the housing emergency will worsen.

The issue just raised by Deputy Martin, which is the allocation of €5 million for the Taoiseach's new strategic communications unit, seems likely to only fund more of the Facebook and Twitter-type advertisements with political messaging that we witnessed from his Department yesterday along with some odd videos of the Minister for Finance arriving at each of his appointments.

Arguably, however, the abandonment of Sláintecare is the worst decision the Government made. Only five months ago, there was cross-party support for the Sláintecare report, including from the Taoiseach's party. Yesterday, it abandoned that cross-party agreement, the only substantial decision that has been made by this do-nothing Dáil. The Government utterly disregarded the funding plans for Sláintecare, which were provided by the all-party committee. At Fianna Fáil's urging, the Government prioritised investment in the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF. The fund can provide short-term results for individuals but focusing investment on the private sector in this manner deprives us of the ability to begin genuinely building our publicly-funded health service. The amount allocated to expand primary care is risible. Sláintecare envisaged free GP care being rolled out to all by 2022 with an additional 500,000 people getting this support each year, including in 2018. It envisaged a substantial increase in primary care diagnostics, counselling and psychology in primary care, as well as universal access to a range of other primary care services. The mere €25 million the Government allocated will do nothing for this. Will the Taoiseach confirm whether the Government has decided to ignore the Sláintecare recommendations?

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