Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Cullinane began by saying that sometimes this Chamber is like "Live at the Apollo". When I hear what some of the Ministers have said in recent days, it is sometimes like a parallel universe. They think that people think this budget was good and that there is a perception out there that it was good. It is not. Someone on €20,000 will probably have an extra euro in their pocket. Somebody on €30,000 will probably have an extra €1.50. The biggest disappointment I have with this budget is the lack of measures being introduced to deal with housing, homelessness and the health sector. The dogs in the street know that there is a massive problem. All of the services are under pressure. There are massive problems with families being homeless and families having no chance of getting a home.

The hospital in my own constituency, University Hospital Limerick, UHL, is at breaking point. A brand new accident and emergency department opened in May of this year and it has done nothing to resolve the situation. It has in fact got critically worse. Some 902 people were on trolleys in UHL in September, which was the highest figure in the State by a country mile. The money allocated to the health budget will mean that services will, at the very best, stay as they are for this year. The situation will not get any better. Some 700,000 people are on waiting lists and thousands of people are on trolleys every month across the city. The number of homeless people has increased to more than 8,000, 3,000 of whom are children. The Government, however, decided that it would allocate €335 million to tax cuts. This money could have made a difference in addressing those problems, but Fine Gael chose a different path. Unfortunately, I do not see these problems being resolved before this time next year as a result of those decisions.

To address business, enterprise and innovation, I was not overwhelmed by the measures introduced, although the additional resources for Brexit and innovation are welcome. Additional funding of €400,000 for the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, however, will barely make a dent in that agency's requirement. At the beginning of the month, the CEO of the HSA said that it could need up to an additional 50 staff. This funding will only meet one sixth of that target. There was no mention of specific additional funding for the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, ODCE, despite the public outrage earlier this year when the trial of the former chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, Seán Fitzpatrick, collapsed due to the botched investigation carried out by the ODCE. The investigation was botched as a result of the lack of resources in that agency.

One major issue I want to raise is the minimum wage. I have raised this point in this Chamber on a number of occasions and it is something about which I feel very strongly. Sinn Féin believes in introducing a living wage and in this budget we suggested raising the minimum wage to €10 per hour as a move towards achieving this objective. Unfortunately, the small increase of 3% announced on Tuesday will do little to help workers who are struggling to make ends meet. Workers are not able to make enough on €9.25 an hour and I do not believe that €9.55 will do enough to help them with the incredible cost of rent, insurance and child care. The Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, previously described this proposal as "miserly", "derisory" and "quite pathetic". He went on to say that a livable wage would not be reached with ridiculous increases such as this. It is quite pathetic. One would wonder how the Government decided on that figure. I completely agree with what the Minister of State said and I am disappointed that his colleagues in the Independent Alliance did not back him up and ensure the introduction of an increase of more than 3%. Fianna Fáil did not even mention the minimum wage in its budget document. This is no surprise as the last time it touched the minimum wage was to cut it by €1.

Another massive oversight in this budget is the fact that PRSI bands will not change in line with the minimum wage increase, meaning that almost half of the €584 which people on the minimum wage think they will get due to the 30 cent increase will in fact be eaten up by tax. The Taoiseach came in here yesterday waving around the Sinn Féin alternative budget. He did not, however, point out that on page 54 we allocated funding of over €20 million to ensure that workers and employers would not be hit with costs as a result of the rise in the minimum wage, which is something the Government did not do in its budget. Its budget will mean that people on €18,000 a year will see their effective tax rate increase by 1.4% while people earning €100,000 will see a reduction of 0.3%. That really says it all. The International Monetary Fund, IMF, is today calling on governments finally to start taxing the rich to help the poor. It is about time we started doing that in this country.

One issue of huge concern to me and on which I have campaigned for years is the issue of drugs and drug abuse in the country. I note the level of funding to drugs initiatives has remained static for 2018 despite huge problems in this area. I am well aware of the problems which drug addiction is causing in Limerick and the mid-west and I am very disappointed that more resources will not be allocated to tackle this problem in 2018. The new drugs strategy which An Taoiseach launched in July will mean nothing and will fail if additional funding is not delivered to those on the front line dealing with the scourge of drugs in Limerick and across the State. I am on the board of the mid-west regional drugs and alcohol forum. We have experienced cuts of up to 50% since 2008. None of that has been restored.

The Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran, spoke about flooding. We have a massive issue with flooding in Limerick. We are waiting on flood defences to be built. The latest information I have is that it will be 2021 before they are built. There is not enough money in the budget to ensure that will happen. In our alternative budget we had allocated enough money to do so.

This budget is very disappointing. It fails to provide the substantial funding needed for the emergencies which we have - the housing crisis and homelessness. Fine Gael was clearly thinking of an election and not what is best for the country when it conjured up this budget.

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