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

I did the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, the courtesy of listening to the entirety of his speech yesterday. I also did the Taoiseach the courtesy of sitting here and listening to the entirety of his speech here this morning. On neither occasion did the Minister for Finance or the Taoiseach do us the courtesy of being in the House to listen to the responses. I would say that this is a very studied decision on the part of the Government. There are certain critiques they do not want to hear. They want to dish out the criticism, which has now become almost an obsession with the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, who cannot miss the opportunity in his speech to hit out at what he describes as "the far left". He contrasts it with the moderate centre and he did this again this morning. The strategy is to attack the far left, to eulogise the Government as the pragmatic and moderate centre and not even bother to listen to what others have to say. We are good enough to attack but - it appears - not good enough to listen to. I suggest that this obsession tells its own story. It expresses a concern on the part of the Government about the traction that our arguments are getting with ordinary people in society. The strategy of the new communications unit - which is obviously writing these scripts with the Taoiseach - is to try to kill off the far left through silence and ignoring it. They will insult the left but will not actually take on board the arguments being made.

I find it deeply ironic. Apparently the pragmatic centre consists of the people who think it is okay to have 8,000 people in homeless accommodation. They think it is okay to not ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to not allocate resources in the budget for those people. They think it is right to not mention Travellers at all in the budget. The second anniversary has just passed of the fire in Carrickmines when ten Travellers died because of the utter failure of the State to provide basic accommodation for Travellers. Two years on and there is not a dickie bird in the budget in this regard. We could go through the list - the poor, young people, the disadvantaged and those in homelessness. There has also been nothing for students in the budget. Third level students with inadequate grants are suffering from student poverty and paying fees they cannot afford but there is nothing for them.

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