Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Politics is about choice. At certain moments, these choices can be limited by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. At other times, the freedom to choose is clear. We are at such a juncture, given the upcoming budget. The Minister for Finance tells us that the public finances have been stabilised, we are the fastest-growing economy in the EU and our economy has recovered from the catastrophe that was wrought upon it by the reckless mismanagement of Fianna Fáil. However, that recovery was shouldered by the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, by those struggling to get by and by working families that pay their bills and are left with little, if anything, afterwards. The Government is now proposing that the very recovery won by these people will not be enjoyed by them. In fact, it is proposing that the recovery will be enjoyed by a minority.

Questions need to be asked. At a time when our economy grows, why do we live in a society where homelessness is becoming a fact of life? Why does our housing market continue to fail families and young couples? Why does it continue to force children to spend their childhood years living in hotel rooms? As the economy grows, why does our health service continue to fail our women, our elderly and our communities? Why do we continue to lag behind our EU partners in infrastructural investment, failing to pave the roads that will lead to the dynamic indigenous economy of the future? As the economy grows, why are we failing to address a lost decade of investment?

The Government wants us to believe that we cannot address these crises because we need to be prudent but questions must be answered in the coming months. For us, the answers are stark and clear. We can address the crises by broadening our tax base and pivoting our economy away from an over-reliance on corporation tax receipts. Answers can be found in investing in social and affordable housing, banishing the scourge of homelessness from our society and addressing the threat that housing undersupply poses to our economy. They can be found in investing in our infrastructure to address the lost decade of underinvestment, which has seen our capital stock fall far below the levels of the EU and other advanced economies. Answers can be found in investing in infrastructure and broadband, bringing our public capital stock levels from among the lowest in the EU to the highest and connecting our communities. Answers can be found in investing in childcare to ease the unsustainable burden that is placed on young families and deters women from entering the workforce.

That is the vista that lies before us and the choice that we have to make. We in Sinn Féin choose to seize the opportunity and to invest in our economy. We choose to bring a recovery to everyone and to build a sustainable future in the present. We believe it can be achieved by adhering to the fiscal rules. It can be achieved without the reckless policies of the past which were propagated by Fianna Fáil and which this Government proposes to continue. It can be achieved within those fiscal rules and without pursuing unsustainable trends in expenditure. The fiscal rules were designed to prevent the boom and bust policies and practices of the past. In these circumstances, Fine Gael has made its choice and Fianna Fáil has followed suit. Fine Gael, with the support of Fianna Fáil, has chosen to deprive the economy, the public and the very citizens who helped to rebuild this economy of the available €1.4 billion investment which can and should be included as part of the fiscal rules. They are attempting to rewrite the rules which they have preached to us about for the last number of years and to convince the public that it is necessary to under-invest and it is normal to have crisis after crisis. It falls upon us, in the real Opposition, to set the record straight. Fine Gael will claim that spending the money available to the public purse, under the fiscal rules, is both reckless and irresponsible. It will claim it will lead to an increased Government deficit and a structural deficit. It will claim that such deficits are dangerous. Fine Gael will not tell the public that last year, in 2017, it created a deficit of 0.3%. It is not telling the public tonight that this year we will have a structural deficit of 0.6% and we will fail to reach the medium-term budgetary objective which the Minister of State is now declaring as the panacea for all our social ills.

The Government is also telling us that to solve our housing crisis and fix our broken health system would lead to economic ruin. That is a dangerous untruth. It is an untruth which ensures that the crises in housing and health remain permanent features of our society. Fianna Fáil has bought into this untruth. The Government now plans to sell that to the public over the coming months but the public will not be fooled. Fianna Fáil had a choice today about what side to stand on and it has decided to stand on the side of the Government which, in our opinion, is the wrong side. In doing so, Fianna Fáil has rendered itself unfit to solve this crisis. There has been much talk of the rainy day fund. The Government is failing to tell people that to release funds from the rainy day fund outside the expenditure benchmark would require a change to the fiscal rules. We have had no indication from the Government that it is willing to even negotiate any change in the fiscal rules to allow the money it is now proposing to put into a rainy day fund to be spent in a time of economic downturn.

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