Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, are on their knees. Communities and families are crying out for help. During 2017 and 2018, some 747 people in this land tragically died by suicide. People are dying and this Government has allocated a paltry €14 million in new money for mental health services in 2020. Shame on the Government. That is especially the case when we all know early intervention can save lives. None of the pressures experienced today by workers and families has occurred by accident.

So much of it is the result of bad governance and bad policy and too many lives are being jeopardised and ruined as a result. This needs to be put right and it needs be fixed and fixed fast.

The first step in fixing it is in how we frame budgets. We need to talk about who is prioritised by the Government. It prioritises those at the top. That is who it looks after. It believes they are entitled to the first focus and first call on the resources of the State. Is that not a crazy proposition? Let me speak plainly. Bankers do not deserve to be the priority for the Government. Let us look at their track record. It is one of corruption, toxic behaviour and gratuitous bonuses. Rip-off insurance companies do not deserve to be the priority for the Government. Let us look at how they treat people. They charge sky high premiums, engage in double-pricing and exhibit a complete lack of transparency. Extortionate landlords do not deserve be the priority for the Government. Let us look at the nightmare hard-working renters have been put through in recent years. Bankers, insurance companies and corporate landlords take enough and get enough. The only reason they should be the priority of Government policy is when the Government is taking them on.

It is workers and families who must be the priority, now and always. It was the determination of workers and families that brought the economy back from the disaster wrought by Fianna Fáil. It was the resilience of those same workers and families that delivered the recovery, despite the brutal era of cuts and austerity inflicted on them by Fine Gael and the Labour Party. It was workers and families who did the heavy lifting during the tough times. How incredible is it then that workers and families are told to stand at the back of the queue when the fruits of that recovery are ready to be distributed? It is incredible but not surprising. This has long been the story for workers and families under Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. They have experienced decades of being told that a good life is only the preserve of society's upper echelons. That is insulting, wrong, unjust and unfair. I would go as far as describing it as theft. Every time the Government prioritises the banks, the landlords and the ultra wealthy, it steals from workers and families. It steals their ability to make ends meet. It steals their sense of security and well-being. It steals their happiness, peace of mind and right to a good life that is both affordable and sustainable. That is what Governments in this state have done for generations, including on the Taoiseach's watch. The Government plays politics with the aspirations of workers and families, while funnelling the profits and good times to the rich and powerful. It is easy for politicians who are well paid and well connected to tell workers and families that they have to wait. Workers and families are told to wait for a living wage, affordable housing, healthcare and childcare services. Imagine, in 2019, telling workers and families to wait for such things. Imagine telling them to wait for the basics and their share of the recovery they built.

The Government's big idea in the budget is to put the financial burden of the climate crisis onto the shoulders of workers and families. The Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, has called it the Brexit budget. Make no mistake - for ordinary people, it is the fuel tax budget. In the absence of measures to enable people to transition to a low carbon lifestyle, something we support, increases in fuel tax just will not work. All they will do is make people poorer. Those for whom every single euro is precious will be hammered by this decision. The Taoiseach should stop the spin about it being a green measure. He should tell the truth. This fuel tax increase is about raising funds and nothing else. The Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform described the climate crisis as "our defining challenge." It would have been commendable if his actions had matched the gravity of his words. If he really wanted to tackle climate change, he would have dramatically increased investment in public transport and renewable energy. He has not and will not. Instead, he chose to use the demand for climate action to squeeze workers and families even further, but we should not be surprised as that is his way. It is, after all, the Fine Gael way. Until the day a Government is prepared to invest in alternatives, taxes like this one are nothing but a dead end. They will not work and the Government will have abdicated its duty to take real and effective action. The Government states it framed the budget on the supposition of a no-deal Brexit. It should have framed it on the understanding workers and families need a new deal from the Government, a new deal which they have earned. It is they who brought the State back from the abyss. We must renew the social contract between the people and the Government. We must agree principles around which we can build a new and a better society, one which will work for everybody, not just the privileged few.

Let us put a number of fundamentals on the table, the pillars from which there is an undeniable public benefit. First, work must pay through the deliverance of a living wage. Second, housing must be available and affordable. Third, healthcare is a right. Fourth, education must be free. It must be really free. These four pillars can shape the basis for a new deal that will deliver for workers and families across the country. Such a deal would be good for citizens and the economy. This new deal would shift the priority of the Government away from the banks, big corporations and landlords. It would place the focus of the Government where it should be on the well-being of workers and families. A well paid, well educated, healthy and happy citizenry strengthens our society. A well paid, well educated, healthy and happy citizenry strengthens the economy too. The four pillars of this new deal would be underpinned by decency, fairness and goodwill. They should be the bedrock of the Government for Ireland. We should be able to say about living in Ireland that one will have a job that delivers an affordable and good life. We should be able to say one will have a home that will not be financially crippling. We should be able to say one can see his or her doctor or go to the hospital without worrying about the cost. We should be able to say children will receive a free education from the first day of school to the last day of college. This is a deal the vast majority of citizens would get behind. This is a deal under which people would finally see real and tangible benefits for their tax money. It would break the economic model of winners and losers. It would be progressive and positive. It would be uplifting and fair. It would be modern and, above all, is achievable.

For too long, people have asked themselves what are they getting back from the Government. That question is justifiably asked. The absence of tangible benefits for ordinary people corrodes public confidence and trust in politics and politicians. People are tired of promises and abstract notions. They want something they can see and touch. They want something that brings value and betters their lives and those of their families. For too long, the Government has restricted the prospects for the people by accepting the limitations of cyclical economics and by policies set in the narrow space between boom and bust. Fine Gael calls this prudence, but I disagree. I call it class politics. It is a system of politics that gives bailed out banks sweetheart deals. It is a system of politics that delivers millions of euros of public money in subsidies to private landlords, instead of building public housing. It is a system of politics that preserves preferential tax treatment for millionaire executives over delivering a package that would meet the needs of citizens living with disabilities. The budget, like all Fine Gael budgets, is about ring-fencing the wealth and privileges of those at the top. If prudence was the mainstay of Fine Gael financial policy, we would not have had the debacle of mind-boggling cost overruns at the national children's hospital. Neither would we have had the utter fiasco that is the national broadband plan.

Let me offer a different and I believe correct definition of prudence. Providing for the four pillars I have outlined is the essence of prudence. It is prudent because the social and economic dividend would be significant and transformational. Delivering on the four principles I have outlined is the surest way to cushion the blow of any future economic shock, Brexit-related or otherwise. A new deal represents a way forward. A new deal would make the recovery real for workers and families. It would represent a new departure in the relationship between the people and the Government. It would renew the idea that the Government should serve the people and that those in government are servants of the public. We should all agree that the Government needs to get back to that fundamental principle. Many are disconnected from politics and excluded from the decision-making process. They ask what government is about. I believe the new deal would answer this question in a progressive, pragmatic and ambitious way.

Sinn Féin's alternative budget would represent an important first step in delivering this new deal for the people. We showed how the Government could introduce measures that would have an immediate and positive impact on people's lives. We showed how it could reduce costs and raise incomes. We showed how it could give workers and families a break. We also outlined how it could begin the work of delivering a safer and more affordable future. We showed how that could be done without putting the economy and the public finances at risk. The budget was an opportunity to do the right thing and deliver solutions for workers and families, but the Minister for Finance, hemmed in by a tired and divisive ideology, has again squandered that opportunity.

Budget 2020, like all budgets, was about choices. The Minister and the Government have made bad choices. Families and workers need and deserve a break, but the budget has delivered nothing for ordinary working people, renters, couples trying to buy a home and parents crippled by the cost of childcare. It was another do-nothing budget from a do-nothing Government, supported wholeheartedly by its do-nothing partners in Fianna Fáil. It was almost comical yesterday to hear both the Minister for Finance and Fianna Fáil's Deputy Michael McGrath dust off the mantra that the centre must hold. It would be comical if was not so tragically misguided.

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