Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As I sat here for the last hour or so listening to my colleagues' analysis of the budget, I was asking myself what value we have in coming in here to criticise the budget. The more I listened to it, the more I was convinced that it is important because I think back to when I was younger, which is a long time ago now, and we would look at these budgets with Fine Gael on one side and Fianna Fáil on the other side with Labour in the middle and they would all talk rubbish and the budget would come in and it would benefit everybody and that would be it. However, what is happening here now is that the Government is hearing an alternative voice on the budget and what is possible and that is important. It is important that the work that everybody has done here in critiquing what the Government is heard because what it is doing is appalling and desperate. The Government does not have a vision, apart from a right-wing vision that seeks to ensure that people are to blame for their situations and problems and the Government is not here to do anything to deal with those problems, rather it is here to make money for the people who it benefits. Unfortunately that is the truth of the matter.

Budget 2019 firmly establishes Fine Gael ideology for the next few years as it once again seeks to prioritise landlords over tenants, developers over social housing, the wealthy over low-income earners, multinationals over public services and private sector interests over individuals as it always has and will continue to do so, so long as it is in power.

What gives away the most about Fine Gael in the budget are the reliefs and incentives targeted to help landlords. Fine Gael, despite the recent Raise the Roof protest and despite there being nearly 10,000 in homelessness with a public outcry on a daily basis over the housing crisis, has prioritised the needs of landlords over tenants.

Landlords are set to benefit from a new scheme allowing a write-off of 100% of their mortgage interest payments on loans used to buy their rental properties. This could mean they will be able to deduct 100% of the interest paid on borrowings from next year onwards. Amazingly, Fine Gael has enough guff to cut, at the same time, mortgage interest relief to half of its original rate in 2019 and it will fall again to 25% in 2020 before being phased out entirely. The Government believes mortgage interest relief has a distorting effect on house prices. It is unbelievable that it believes that.

There is a separate scheme set to benefit landlords involving a 4% annual capital gains tax relief capped at five years for landlords to buy a rental property where someone is already living in it. When did we start thinking that landlords held the key to meeting housing needs in this country? What about rent controls? What about fast-tracking social housing and direct State builds or tackling those hoarding land and speculating on land. That refers to somebody else not Fine Gael. Fine Gael is stubbornly defiant about the real solutions to the housing crisis and continues to believe in its own flawed definition of social housing which in its view is a market led model aimed at benefitting the private rental sector with State subsidies to private landlords. While I acknowledge the rise in HAP in today's budget, let us not forget that this rise will only help a marginal few as it pushes prices up further. Most disturbingly, this rise will likely mean the State is set to pay over €1 billion in HAP to private landlords by 2021. As they can see very clearly, this is a budget for landlords, who remain a protected feature of Fine Gael's tenure. Why would we expect anything different than Fine Gael continuing to remain loyal to private sector interests? I take this opportunity to echo Unite’s call for a nationwide mixed-income universal public housing system based on the cost rental model. Only by bypassing developer-led projects and landlords can we put in place solutions that adequately address the many different housing needs for people in this country.

The rise in €5 for social welfare payments and the pension is welcome. However, it is not targeting those who need it most. Let us not forget those under 26 who are still on the lower rate. Social welfare payments are nowhere near pre-2012 levels, as has been outlined by my colleagues, with many waiting until March to receive their benefits. I will point out something that has come up in my constituency work which is the fact that those on the working family payment, previously known as FIS, cannot get the Christmas bonus from social welfare. It is a payment to low paid workers and people are not happy with this fact. They are low paid workers but cannot get the bonus. In reality, available resources in this budget are not being shared equally and where the need is greatest.

We are all aware of the recent UN report on climate change which has shown the need for radical transformation of our societies if we are to tackle a rise in temperature of no more than 1.5° Celsius. This budget does not reflect that sense of urgency. Thankfully, the Minister outlined earlier that he is waiting for the committee to do its work and that is why there is nothing in the budget. That is very interesting. It is news to us, as members of the committee, that we had an impact on the budget because everybody who comes in from the Department tells us we do not matter and there is nothing there for the committee. It is very interesting that we have found a way and that we are holding up the budget changes and the State dealing with climate change.

Ultimately we need to start talking about reform of the tax system as a whole with a view to realising both environmental and social justice. This means raising more and higher eco-taxes but recycling revenues back into income tax reductions or reliefs for those low-income households that are particularly affected by rising energy and transport costs. It also means dramatically shifting investment priorities away from road transport to public transport, cycling, walking and shared mobility systems. Reducing income inequality with, for example, a wealth tax should be a priority to balance out the regressive effects of environmental taxes in the longer term.

This budget yet again solidifies the economic trend towards increased wealth inequality. Low-paid workers are not able to keep up with spiralling housing and living costs. This budget fails to bridge the gap for those on low incomes by providing in-work and social protection income supports which I have been calling for in every budget since I was elected as a Deputy. The top 5% in the country own over 40% of the wealth. Once again wealth is not targeted in this year’s budget. Considering the fact that 85% of wealth in this country is in the form of property and land, more than ever we need to target it by taxing wealth. Despite the Comptroller and Auditor General’s recent report saying high-wealth individuals are paying less income tax than average workers, no measure exists here today to address it. The report found that, despite having at least €50 million in assets, they paid relatively low amounts of tax due to the use of credits and reliefs. One in four wealthy individuals has declared taxable income below the average industrial wage of €35,000. How is this a sign of a healthy economic recovery especially while we have a housing crisis and a crisis in our public service provision? If only people on the average industrial wage could get out of the PAYE system, they would be able to avoid tax as the wealthy do. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 people are living poverty, the largest proportion of which are children. It is simply not acceptable that we are moving in the direction where poverty is a persistent feature in an open economy.

This leads me to the next issue, which is the need to address chronic structural problems in the area of health, which this budget does little to address. The trolley crisis in Letterkenny University Hospital still lingers and is set for another hike in numbers this Christmas. In particular in Donegal, there has been a recruitment crisis for the best part of a decade particularly when it comes to the recruitment of consultants in Letterkenny University Hospital. In Donegal we cannot get or retain GPs, hospital consultants or nursing and support staff for new clinical posts particularly in the area of diabetes care. A recent report confirmed that 40 consultant and nursing positions could not be filled at Letterkenny University Hospital. The report also revealed that only 8% of the 500 total staff recruited for Letterkenny University Hospital in 2016 and 2017 came through the national recruitment service. While 90% were recruited by the hospital itself mainly on temporary contracts. The recruitment and retention crisis in healthcare in the north west comes down to the myth, which the Government perpetuates, that Donegal is somehow on the moon, disconnected and separate from the rest of Ireland. It is a chicken and egg situation but Donegal has always been treated as separate from the country and left out of national policy considerations. This has led to chronic underinvestment making it difficult for some people to stay and work in the county. It is true for areas other than health. I have been told by gardaí that they get recruits up from Templemore who do not even know where Letterkenny is and who do not want to be there. They want to get out of it as quickly as they can. A head of a voluntary housing scheme was buying land in Letterkenny recently and did not know Letterkenny had a regional college or that it was a town that was constantly growing. He compared Letterkenny with a town down the country. I will not mention the name of that town because it would not be fair because it is a town he thought was a backwater. That is what is happening in official Ireland.

More funding and more work is needed to overcome the negative perception of Donegal. I have often said that salaries should reflect a person’s decision to relocate to Donegal. We also need to engage with medical students, universities and even with other jurisdictions to come up with solutions to the recruitment crisis. In terms of the primary care budget, I echo the Alzheimer’s Society’s call for funding to help enable those with dementia to live in their homes and with the supports required to make this a reality. The Alzheimer Society of Ireland is therefore calling on Government to invest over €12 million towards community supports for people with dementia. It is not a lot.

In terms of disability services, the Government needs to commit to a multi-annual investment programme of €211 million each year, for five years from 2019 to 2023 for community services for people with intellectual, physical, sensory and neurological disabilities. We need more day services, respite services particularly for the families I have been working with who have children with life-limiting conditions, those within the Our Children’s Voice campaign in Donegal. I also urge the Government to address once and for all the in loco parentisrule which is restrictive for these families.

Finally, we need to apply the legislation as part of Ireland’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. If we do that, we cannot go wrong. The Government has already committed to investing €55 million for new services in mental health in budget 2019 but this will not be enough. The Government needs to address serious gaps in existing service needs and invest in new services in order to undo decades of neglect experienced by Ireland’s mental health services.

I echo the INTO’s call for education priorities in this budget, including reducing class size to EU average levels, supporting leadership in primary schools, planning teacher supply to ensure a qualified teacher for every child and providing equal pay for equal work, which is something the Government knows nothing about.

Significant investment is required to prevent a delay in the roll-out of high quality rural broadband, as well as additional investment in rural transport, rural enterprise, retrofitting houses and community supports. My business survey, which was carried out earlier this year, shows the complete lack of faith many have in the Government to drive local trade in rural towns and to reverse the trend of depopulation. Many small businesses are not even aware that supports are available. To add insult to injury, the lack of imagination in the increase in VAT for the hospitality industry makes rural Ireland pay again for the success of Dublin. Surely a way could have been found to make the increase fairer, taking into account the regional variations.

We need to start looking at budgets and governance through the lens of human rights. Housing, public services and adequate social welfare should be viewed as rights. My proposals for economic, social and cultural rights would represent a rights-based agenda if they were supported by the Government. Only then could we dismantle the toxic policies set out by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over the years, end homelessness and reinstate our high-quality public services once and for all without the threat of cyclical busts and booms so frequent in our globalised economy.

See this speech in context