Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

And the Independent Alliance, of course. We would not let it away with that. They should be prepared for a new wave of housing occupations as the activists involved in Take Back the City and those inspired by it, who have given new impetus to the housing movement we saw with 10,000 people out on the streets, again take action to highlight vacant housing and the resources that exist in our society that are not being used. That is what is necessary. It is necessary because the position of the Government and Fianna Fáil on housing is clear from this budget. They remain completely wedded to the idea of incentivising the private market to provide housing through a massive transfer of wealth to private landlords through HAP and an additional €120 million provided for in this budget. This is the equivalent of 700 public homes on public land every single year. The Government likes to pretend it is prudent and gives out about how we are not prudent. In respect of the incredible extra costs of pursuing such a right-wing ideological approach to the delivery of housing, which involves just paying landlords and saying that people's housing needs have been met, 50,000 out of the 70,000 social housing solutions about which it talks simply involve paying private landlords. The extra costs are incredible. The figures drawn from the research of Mel Reynolds and Rory Hearne show that providing 120,000 social housing units through HAP will be €33 billion more expensive than direct local authority provision over a 30-year period. A total of €1 billion a year is being wasted but it is not just being thrown nowhere - it is being transferred to private landlords. There will be an extra €120 million in HAP and €18 million extra in the mortgage interest relief. Again, this is equivalent to 700 public homes on public land. As Deputy Boyd Barrett pointed out, this money is available in respect of loans used to purchase, improve or repair their residential property. Anyone who has been in rental accommodation and suffered the disastrous situation of being kicked out of his or her rental property under the guise of substantial renovations but in reality so that a landlord can hike up the rent will be sickened to know that their money - public money - is going to incentivise landlords and pay them to say do precisely that. These landlords say they are borrowing to carry out renovations, the public effectively pays for it and people find themselves homeless yet again. The Government's approach is not to say that there should be rent controls in a situation where rental yields are 7%, double those in Germany or the UK. No, the Government's approach is to shovel yet more money in the direction of landlords. Even by the most optimistic and generous interpretation of the figures being put forward for the building of social housing, at the most, one is talking about an increase of 5% when we face a massive crisis and, as has been pointed out, all the previous targets have been missed. Therefore, there are very serious questions about whether they will hit this time.

There has been an attempt to outsource responsibility for housing and to effectively privatise what is deemed to be social housing in terms of the use of HAP. There has also been an attempt to outsource responsibility to local authorities and to tell them that they simply need to build the houses. I sat in the gallery of South Dublin County Council yesterday. The former Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, came out to that council around two years ago and said money was no object when it came to building social housing. However, yesterday, councillors from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party voted together to effectively privatise 70% of council land at Kilcarbery. The land could have provided close to 1,000 social and genuinely affordable homes. Instead, it will only provide 300. These parties bear responsibility for this centrally but also locally. The answer to the housing crisis is simple. The Government can no longer say that it cannot be done overnight or in seven years because it now refusing to even implement plans that would have an impact in three or four years' time. It is not a question of not being able to magic up houses overnight because it is refusing to invest even at this extremely late stage in building the homes that are necessary - building 20,000 new public and affordable homes a year over five years to deliver 100,000 new homes to resolve the crisis. The Government refuses to do it precisely of its ideological and material commitment to the market and those who benefit from the market.

The rainy day fund has been the subject of an amount of discussion out there. This is the third year that it has featured in the budget. Each year it comes, it is more and more of a sick joke because there is a tidal wave of homelessness out there. There is a flood of social problems. It is monsoon season in terms of inequality yet the Government does not listen or want to know about any of that. Instead it wants to put an additional €500 million away this year. It just demonstrates how utterly out of touch it is. However, we should also remind everybody what the rainy day fund actually is. Under EU fiscal rules, it will not be possible to use the rainy day fund to spend on public services. The only circumstances under which the EU fiscal rules will allow this extra money that is not coming in through State revenue to be spent is in cases of "external shocks". What will an external shock look like? I think it looks a lot like what we saw in 2007 and 2008 in terms of a world economic crisis, bank collapses and the money then being used to bail out banks. Right now, while we have this immense housing crisis raging, the Government is effectively building up a bank bailout fund for future use.

Clearly, and to a degree understandably, the Minister had his head elsewhere yesterday and missed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, report but he should not have missed the Climate Action Network report from a few months ago saying Ireland is the second worst in the EU in terms of meeting climate change targets.

Nor should he have missed all the other Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports which made clear the extent of the disaster that we are heading towards. In case the Minister missed yesterday's report, I will spell it out for him. We only have 12 years to stop global warming exceeding 1.5°C. Another 0.5°C above that would significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. Dr. Debra Roberts, the co-chair of the working group on impacts said:

It’s a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now. This is the largest clarion bell from the science community and I hope it mobilises people and dents the mood of complacency.

I am sorry that while it will undoubtedly mobilise people and create the basis for change, there is no sign of the mood of complacency being dented inside the Government, because this budget contains effectively nothing. There is a nod to hybrid vehicles, which is not the solution to climate change. If we want to tackle climate change and want Ireland to become a zero net-emitter of carbon by 2035, at the latest, and if we want a just transition to a zero-carbon economy, we need radical action now. Anything less will not be enough but, in effect, we have nothing in this budget.

This is not in line with the attitudes of people in this country. The Citizens Assembly, for example, voted 100% in favour of the State taking a lead in tackling climate change, 97% supported the establishment of a new independent body to ensure that climate change is at the centre of policy-making and 92% favoured the State prioritising investment in public transport over road infrastructure. However, the Government did not listen to any of that, as is evident from the budget. We need to slash emissions in agriculture and transport, our two highest emitting sectors. How we do this in transport is obvious: we must get people out of private cars and onto public transport such as bus, rail, or light rail. That means capital investment in public transport and it means making it free as in Estonia. The resources exist to allow us to do it and it would have a radial impact on emissions. Free public transport costs only slightly more than the money being raised by the increase in VAT for the hospitality sector. To bring it back to the 2008 level and increase it by 33% would take €130 million and further capital investment. If the Government was serious about climate change instead of paying lip service to it, it would announce these kind of measures. If we do not build a movement to force the Government and others like it around the world to take the action that is necessary, we will all pay a devastating price.

Ireland, after this budget, will remain no country for young people as a result of the actions taken by this and previous Governments since the crisis. They are treated as second-class citizens in many different areas, with two-tier employment, a two-tier social welfare and a complete absence of the necessary investment in their education. The student contribution charge remains at €3,000 after Labour broke its promise to prevent its increase and there is no talk of getting rid of that. With regard to access to education, almost 95% of school students from Dublin 4 go to university, compared to less than 20% from Dublin 17. There was nothing about student grants or the student accommodation crisis. The Union of Students in Ireland, USI, estimates that there is demand for more than 25,000 beds but, instead of public student accommodation, students are fleeced by corporate private landlords.

The situation of low paid workers, many of whom are young, remains the same. The Government increased the national minimum wage by a 20 cent an hour, which amounts to €8 a week if a worker is doing a 40-hour week, but the average increase in rent in Dublin last year was €50 a week. The national minimum wage remains more than €2 below the living wage, which itself is an absolute rock bottom minimum for anyone who wants to survive in a city and pay rent.

In the public sector, the Government has entrenched the existence of two-tier pay for years to come and has once again done nothing to end the discrimination against those aged under 26 on social welfare. It is incredible that young people are asked to live on a little over €100 a week. It is disgusting discrimination and leaves young people in a difficult, precarious and exposed position.

The Government's extreme neoliberal approach is very evident in every aspect of the budget. The clear reliance on the private market to deal with everything is evident in the childcare and health sectors. It should be remembered that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs told the Dáil, "It is an essential foundation for my pledge to transform our childcare system from one of the most expensive in the world to one of the best." What was announced today to bring us any closer to one of the best? Does the budget merely entrench one of the world's most expensive childcare systems? Clearly it entrenches this vastly expensive childcare system, as it simply increases a subsidy to private childcare providers. In many areas of Dublin, it costs more than €1,400 a month for two young children. That is 60% of the median take home pay of a wage earner over 35 years. In Dublin City centre, the average cost of childcare is 50% of the take home pay of a minimum wage full-time worker and that includes the subsidy. The subsidies do not deal with that fundamental issue. Furthermore, it is a sector which is racked by low pay and precarity and contracts that do not extend beyond 40 weeks a year. There is an obvious alternative to subsidising the sector but that means breaking from the reliance on the free market and investing to move Ireland towards publicly run, free childcare. The total cost of expanding the capacity and hiring 50,000 childcare workers on decent wages to provide free State provided childcare for all, which would transform people's lives in a fundamental way, would be €2.5 billion.

The same is true in the health sector. The Minister claimed that health spending is at a record high but failed to mention that the population has increased and has gotten older and, therefore, a higher budget is needed to even just stand still. The health service capacity review this year examined demographic changes and projected an immediate need for an additional 1,200 beds if we are to have a safe occupancy rate. The review also projected that we need almost 6,000 additional beds by 2031 to keep up with demographic changes. There is no way that will be met on the basis of this spending.

There will be a crisis in hospitals this winter. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, has predicted a war zone in hospitals and the Government has no credible plan to deal with additional patients. Over the summer and into the autumn, the number of patients on trolleys, which was almost 8,000 this September, had reached a record high. The Government gave the game away regarding its approach to healthcare and public service more generally in the budget lines that received the largest percentage increases. The NTPF has increased by 36% or €20 million. Its approach relies on underfunding public services and then outsourcing to private companies to deal with the mess. It is the classic recipe for undermining public services and driving them towards privatisation. The alternative and most efficient way to run our health service is an Irish national health service, which would be single tier and properly funded to provide a quality public health service. Rather than go even a step in this direction in this budget, the Government has gone in the opposite direction towards a privatised health service.

My final couple of points are on taxation. The Government will try to make much out of tax changes which will see average-paid workers getting maybe €4 extra a week without mentioning that it will be wiped out overnight by the increases in rents. With the big things that are happening, there is misdirection going on. One is told to look at the €4 or €5 one will get, but not at the way those at the top of society are getting away with paying little or no tax. The recent Comptroller and Auditor General report revealed that a quarter of those with wealth of over €50 million paid less than an average PAYE worker in tax. Another 40% paid less than €120,000. That is not even the biggest scandal.

The biggest scandal is the massive tax avoidance of the multinational corporations actively facilitated by the Government. The Government keeps repeating the rate of 12.5% but the big corporations do not pay 12.5%. The figures are in. One can look at them. They are clear. In 2016, total profits before deductions were just under €160 billion. Total corporation tax paid was just over €7 billion, amounting to an effective rate of corporation tax, after deductions, of 4.5%.

Some of the worst companies for using Ireland as a tax haven conduit are the big technology companies, such as Apple, Google and Facebook, but the other big participants that have been revealed by a recent report by Oxfam are the big pharmaceutical companies. Four of the largest, Abbott, Johnson and Johnson, Merck and Pfizer, are using Ireland to avoid paying tax. For example, Abbott paid no tax whatsoever on profits of €1.2 billion declared in Ireland in 2015 - not a single cent. That is a loss for the public of €155 million from one company for just one year and yet the Government still tries to claim that it is tackling tax avoidance.

We should be clear that this is not a victimless crime or a simple matter of tax competition which Ireland just happens to be good at. We live in a world of galloping inequality, where 82% of wealth generated across the world last year went to the richest 1%, with the bottom 50% getting none of it. A key factor in that inequality is the race to the bottom in corporate tax rates, in which Ireland is leading the way. Ordinary people in this country pay a price in terms of the housing crisis, health and education as a result of not collecting tax from the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook, Abbott, Pfizer etc. Developing countries and those who need public services in developing countries pay a price. It is also a model which is fundamentally unsustainable, given the situation in terms of Brexit, the situation in terms of Trump and the race to the bottom in terms of corporate tax rates in which others are engaging. An alternative model is needed.

People should be clear that there is a considerable amount of wealth in our society, not only wealth that already sits there but wealth that is generated on a yearly basis. Gross domestic product, GDP, per person this year will be €60,000. There is loads of wealth in our society but it is a question of how that wealth is distributed and how the sources of that wealth are owned. A very radical alternative to what is put forward today by the Government is possible but it means breaking from the fiscal straitjacket of the EU. It means breaking from a model of capitalism and the reliance on the free market to deliver. It means saying that the interests of society as a whole should come before the interests of the profiteers and privateers. It means using the wealth in society to address all of the social crises that are present.

The wealth exists in our society to tackle the housing crisis, to build a national health service, to provide free public childcare, to provide free public transport and for a just transition to a zero carbon economy but it requires radical socialist policies. Look even at the amounts of wealth that could be raised through taxation: a millionaires' tax of 2% would raise over €3 billion; a doubling of the corporate tax rate for big businesses and a cutting of the loopholes would raise over €10 billion; increasing PRSI for employers could raise €1.4 billion; and repudiating odious bankers' debt would generate a yearly saving of around €3 billion. There are many more examples.

Of course, taxation alone is not enough. One cannot control what one does not own and therefore we need democratic public ownership of the key sectors of our economy to resolve the crises we face. When one looks concretely at the crises that we face, that is obvious. When one looks at the housing crisis, it is obvious that we should use the resources that are going into the rainy day fund, that exist in NAMA and ISIF, to set up a public construction company to build the necessary housing on public land. In terms of climate change, it is obvious that the energy companies need to be taken into democratic public ownership, and the oil and gas should be left in the ground, in a situation where private companies have refused to make the kind of investment in wind and wave energy which is necessary and which could see Ireland being a leader in green energy. In terms of moving away from the disastrous tax haven model that leads nowhere, it is clear that public investment and public ownership of the key sectors of the economy are necessary for a sustainable plan of economic development. None of the major parties here stands for such a programme but it is what is necessary to resolve the crises facing people in this country and what is possible on the basis of the resources that exist here.

This landlords', neoliberal, anti-young person budget underlines yet again the need to build a mass party of the left to fight for a left government which would introduce a socialist budget which would really transform people's lives.

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