Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Political debate in recent years, in this House and in the country generally, has been dominated on the Government side by the twin issues of Brexit and climate change. Those issues pose major challenges for the country, particularly the uncertainty regarding Brexit. It is impossible to forecast what is going to happen next week with that issue, let alone next year. I recognise fully the major challenges those issues pose to the country. It is difficult not to think, however, that they have been used by the Government as cover to continue ignoring major and important domestic issues affecting many people.

I refer in particular to housing and the housing crisis, the major problems in the health service and the high cost of living with which most people are trying to cope. The Social Democrats have stated umpteen times that if the Government set out to reduce the cost of living, that would address many other problems. The failure to control the cost of housing, whether rental or purchase, is a major driver of the high cost of living. The same can be said of the high costs associated with accessing healthcare, whether in the public system or the private sector via health insurance.

Other areas such as childcare, the cost of energy, etc. all contribute to producing a cost of living that is unaffordable for many people. The Government has studiously avoided addressing these issues in recent years. It has been hard to get the Government to engage with us on these challenges. This budget has shown the continuation of that kind of approach. The Government has used Brexit, in particular, as an excuse for not addressing other pressing problems. Consequently, this budget means that many people are going to be left behind. It does no service either to the issue of Brexit or climate change. The public has lost confidence in the Government's ability to address these domestic issues.

None of these domestic matters is more apparent or starkly highlighted than what has been done in respect of welfare. There was much preparation of the public mood in recent weeks regarding the Government's intention to not increase social welfare payments by €5 a week across the board, as has happened in recent years. We did not, therefore, expect that to happen today, given that advance flagging. Everybody, however, expected that there would at least be a cost of living increase. I refer to the Government ensuring that the welfare rates would keep pace with the cost of living. It is incredible that the Government has failed to do that. The failure to ensure that welfare rates were inflation-proofed may mean that given the likelihood of inflation going up by 1.3% or 1.4% next year, in real terms that will be a cut for pensioners and anybody dependent on a welfare payment.

For example, take a couple of 67 or 68 years of age who are receiving the contributory old age pension. That couple will effectively suffer a loss of over €6 per week next year as a result of the Government's failure to inflation-proof welfare charges. It is emerging and becoming apparent that this is one of the most regressive budgets since the austerity years. That is a surprise, given all the noise we heard from Fianna Fáil, particularly from Deputy O'Dea, who was talking about his determination to secure a €5 increase. It is amazing that Fianna Fáil has gone along with this failure to address the inflationary aspect of welfare payments. I do not know how it can justify what it is doing and the idea that welfare recipients, pensioners and others will suffer a loss next year.

Added to that is the question of the carbon tax and how that will impact on people. We know the UN sustainability goals require states to tackle the issue of climate change, but also to prevent poverty. Those twin aims have to underpin any approach taken on climate change and carbon tax but that has not happened this time. We have a €6 per tonne increase in the carbon tax, with no offsetting measures of any consequence. We in the Social Democrats have said clearly that while the principle of a carbon tax is fine, unless there is a clear plan to mitigate the worst impacts of the carbon tax on those on low and modest incomes, it is impossible to support it. We have seen a tokenistic approach to mitigating the impact of carbon tax today. The Government is talking about introducing a €2 per week increase in the fuel allowance. That will help one in five households but nothing has been done for the other households that will be affected by this. Despite the Minister of State's promises to review the situation and to carry out a review of energy poverty, as was requested by the all-party committee, at no point did he sit down and speak to organisations such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to find out what is the best way of ensuring that people who are currently experiencing fuel poverty are not further penalised by this measure. He has utterly failed to ensure there is the necessary balance in the increase in the carbon tax to ensure the carbon tax does not impoverish large numbers of people. It damages the principle of a carbon tax when it is not done fairly.

On housing, which is in the Minister of State's area, nothing is being done for renters while rents are going through the roof and escalating at an enormous rate. We have called for a nationwide cap on rent increases. The Minister of State has steadfastly refused to do that. We have called for the rent pressure zone to be extended to the entire country and the Minister of State has refused to do that. There is a large generation of people trapped in rental accommodation, with little to no prospect of them ever being able to get out of that. Again, high rents are a huge driver in the high cost of living.

I refer to the area of disability. It is interesting that the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath was talking about the medical card increases for people over 70 years of age. He would be much better off concentrating on his area of disability, where the independent review group has identified a major funding shortfall for all of the non-profit organisations that provide 80% of disability charges. The word "disability" was hardly mentioned by the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, today, and that is a measure of the lack of priority this Government attaches to the area of disability.

I want to ask the Minister of State if the budget has been poverty-proofed? I have not heard anybody talking about that. There is no indication from the measures set out today that it has been poverty-proofed. As I said earlier, I contend this budget will be found to be regressive because of the kind of measures it contains.

I want to talk about what the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, announced today about REITs. Those of us on this side of the House have said for a long time that it is indefensible what the Government is allowing the real estate bodies, the investment trusts and the REITs to do. There has been no attempt to find out how these vehicles operate and there has been no attempt to establish what they are costing us. Like so many tax breaks this Government has introduced, the standard reply when we ask for details of these tax expenditures and how much they are costing us, is that the data is not collected. That is the standard response we have been getting when we ask about the IREFs and REITs. It is quite extraordinary that the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, should say today that: "I have instructed my officials to intensely scrutinise activities in the IREF regime over the coming year". That begs the question of why on earth the Minister has not been doing that all along. It has been the most blatant tax-avoiding activity that has been encouraged by this Government. We have seen representatives of both of those types of vehicles express amazement that there is so much money to be made out of the Irish rental sector and not believing their luck with the blind eye the Government has been showing to them. It is incredible that it is only at this stage the Minister is saying he will get his officials to examine it. It is not before time and I am concerned at the level at which the Government is pitching in terms of finally looking to bring those vehicles into the tax system.

The other area that is indefensible is that of the special assignee relief programme. I raised this with the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, last week. It is indefensible to have such a system. It is a tax break whereby one has to have a minimum income of €75,000 per year. It is unacceptable to allow people in that income category to get a tax-free relief on 30% of their income. That is in addition to the other benefits they accrue with their accommodation and their children's private schooling. The employee must be on a salary of €75,000 per year to qualify. This was introduced in 2012 and was due to expire at the end of 2017 but it was later extended. This scheme is grossly unfair and is a slap in the face to people on low and moderate incomes who are paying high levels of tax. There is no justification for it. The Government should not be subsidising significant salaries when there are so many other priorities for taxpayers' money. It is outrageous that ordinary taxpayers are funding a scheme to provide a tax break for people who are earning so much money, who are already comfortable in their lifestyle and who are well-off. There is no justification for it and the scheme should be scrapped. Many of us have called for the scheme to be scrapped and, regrettably, in today's budget, the Minister announced that he is extending it.

For the next few minutes I want to raise the health provisions included in the budget. I will start by welcoming one important initiative, the decision to allocate funding for the employment of an extra 1,000 therapists and other front-line health workers. That is a very important development. It will certainly assist in what we have been talking about for years, namely, switching activity away from acute hospitals to primary and community care centres. There are huge gaps in services, as we know only too well. It is really important that when the new posts are allocated, they be allocated transparently. The Department of Health has something called a resource allocation model. I established it when I was in the Department in 2011 and 2012. It measures where the existing posts are and ensures each health area is weighted in terms of population, socioeconomic and age profile, rurality and other factors. This allows a clear picture of the country in order that posts can be allocated on the basis of need. Looking at the figures for psychologists, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, therapists of all kinds, public health nurses and psychologists, one sees very wide variations in how posts are allocated. Too often, unfortunately, posts are allocated on the basis of political considerations. We need a commitment that the additional 1,000 posts which are very welcome will be allocated on the basis of need and in an objective manner. That means attending to all of the "catch-up counties", as we call them, the areas where there is a growing population. I refer to the commuter belt around Dublin, Cork, Galway and other parts of the country. There must be clear recognition of the growing demand for services in development counties. Resources should not be allocated on historical grounds. That is a really important point.

Notwithstanding that welcome development, we do not see any serious commitment to implementation of Sláintecare in the budget. The Government was handed a ten-year roadmap, agreed to by all parties, for the reform of the health service to achieve what all other European countries had - a universal single tier health service. It will not come cheaply and nobody is claiming that it will. Considerable investment will be required at an early stage to achieve the step-change to a lower cost model of care. That is the only way to reform the health service. Unfortunately, most of what we have got from the Government, particularly the Minister, is lip service to the implementation of Sláintecare. I also note that some of the measures in the budget for which Fianna Fáil pushed actually work against Sláintecare. I draw attention particularly to the National Treatment Purchase Fund which is a stopgap measure that actually compounds the dysfunction in the health service. It incentivises the movement of public work away from public hospitals where the funding is provided to private hospitals or private consultants. That results in a double payment for public patients. It is a bad move which does not do anything to reform the health service; in fact, it compounds the problems in many ways.

I also wish to mention something that Fianna Fáil is again claiming as an achievement - the additional 1 million homecare hours. The provision of 1 million homecare hours will cost about €25 million. The demand from Family Carers Ireland, based on the existing level of provision and existing waiting lists, is for €110 million. There are 7,200 older people who have been assessed as being in urgent need of homecare and have been left on waiting lists. That is the level of funding required to address this issue. Doing so makes sense, not only to respect the needs of older people but also to ensure acute hospitals become more efficient. It is a missed opportunity.

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