Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday we heard from the Minister for Finance a budget without a purpose. It was a weak, conservative budget. There was no vision attached to it but there should have been.

Budget 2019 is not like recent budgets. This was the first budget since 2007 when the Government genuinely had scope to bring about positive social change. The recovery of the economy for which so many people suffered and worked so hard has paid off with high employment and healthy public finances, giving this particular Government a significant opportunity to answer the vital question about our future, namely, what next? We need new ideas for the economy because we are running out of time for corporation tax to attract foreign direct investment. Both the OECD framework on base erosion and profit shifting, BEPS, and the European Union's push for common standards will ultimately reduce the unique advantage of the Irish taxation system. Many countries have simply reduced their own corporation tax rates, thereby reducing Ireland's relative attractiveness.

We should have heard some leadership on the future of our society in budget 2019. The Government could have earmarked €5 billion, as we proposed, from the ISIF to build 25,000 affordable houses. That would be dramatic and visionary. It would have signalled to everyone that this was a country that helps ordinary people to meet the cost of living. However, the Government just signalled more of the same, with a little extra money for the same failed housing policies. There are tax breaks for landlords and subsidies for private developers - where did we hear that before? - with much council housing announced again and again as social housing to be leased from private owners and not added to the council housing stock. The Government could have introduced a balanced package of measures to tackle climate change in a week where major reports reiterated the urgency and seriousness of a global temperature rise. That would have demonstrated that we would catch up on our emissions targets, which have had, and will continue to have, devastating impacts on our world. However, the Government fudged it by presenting secondary measures that failed to address the big issues. We need to use strong policies such as carbon taxes to redirect economic activity into a wholly new direction if our way of life is to be sustainable.

The Government could have introduced a plan to transform childcare and pre-school education or to finally implement the Sláintecare reforms. That would have set out a purpose or vision for the budget. That would have shown that no one would be left behind in this country and where every child and every patient would be given the best possible assistance. However, the Government just allocated small pots of money for specific projects with a little here and a little there, but no grand plan. There was nothing to give people confidence that public services are on a pathway towards the higher standards to which we aspire and look on enviously at in many other northern European countries.

From a Labour Party perspective, we have a clear vision about what any budget should do. The budget should help people. It should help those who have kept faith with Government through the hard times and who rely on Government to be honest when resources are available and to give them a fair benefit from those resources. There was a time the budget was a genuine national endeavour. In the past, budgets were about honestly showing the people what they have collectively contributed to the State and explaining what we can achieve together by combining our resources to build schools, fund hospitals and provide income support to those who need assistance. Budgets used to be about including everyone as citizens in vindicating their citizenship. However, this Government has made it clear that many people are being left to fend for themselves in a market economy where predatory landlords and vulture funds are ruining lives. The budget should help people to help themselves by giving them a secure base, affordable homes, affordable childcare and a genuine safety net in the form of health services, welfare payments and disability supports when they are needed. The duty of the State, as the President has said, is to provide people with a floor of decency, a solid foundation that allows them to move forward with confidence to make choices for themselves and to feel empowered to deal with the challenges that we all face in life.

The budget is funded from public money and we are all taxpayers. Those on the lowest incomes pay as great a proportion of their incomes in indirect taxes as those on higher incomes pay in direct and indirect taxes combined. Yet the Government has taken up a narrative, which I have heard repeatedly in recent weeks, supported by Fianna Fáil, that people paying direct income taxes are somehow more unfairly treated compared to those paying mostly indirect taxes. The facts do not bear this out.

The budget, funded all citizens, should provide universal benefits for all citizens. The purpose of the budget should be to bring about a more equal society, not, as this Government has done, to reinforce the existing economic inequality that is increasingly visible in the form of houses and lifestyles. The budget should give us a unity of purpose, not, as this Government has done, sending everyone to online calculators to work out what the individual benefit will be for them personally, regardless of the consequences for others and society in general.

A mature budget process, such as we see in other jurisdictions such as Denmark and the Netherlands, should have provided us with a picture of what kind of country we aspire to, and a vision of where we are going. Where was that aspiration or that sense of direction? Imagine if in ten years, we had an ecologically-sound economy, and zero carbon emissions from our cities, as Copenhagen will achieve by 2025. Imagine strong supports for traditional culture and the contemporary arts, and true social inclusion that would allow every citizen to feel at peace with everyone else, and to feel their life was dignified and not jealous, angry or afraid, which are visible signs of a breakdown in social cohesion and shared purpose.

Labour's vision is to return the conversation to what we can do together, le chéile, as a single people and what good can be achieved collectively. The best of our people are more concerned with what they can do to assist others, asking nothing in return. The best of us seek to improve other people's lives and to see how we can make our communities and our world a better place, and that is what the budget should have set out to do. The job of the Government is to provide people with a vision, a sense of direction, a sense of purpose towards a better future.

Maybe I am being unfair. Maybe the Government has been, in fact, honest in laying out its vision. Fine Gael would tell us that it is rewarding achievement. That is why those on higher incomes or those with high levels of family wealth have been rewarded by cuts in income tax that will only benefit the top 20% or cuts to inheritance tax that will have a positive impact on only 10% of our people. Fine Gael would tell us that it is supporting ambition. They are promoting an economic system based on individualism where the strong will do better always than the weak. They have done little to change an unequal playing field for the many who are born with material disadvantage or with disabilities. Fine Gael would tell us that it is empowering people to be successful but the Fine Gael vision of opportunity for all is really just a way of fostering competition between our people.

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