Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When Deputy Cowen rose to speak on the latest Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil budget, he managed to say almost nothing about the budget and the measures therein. Although he is one of Fianna Fáil's most prominent spokespersons, all he did was treat us to a litany of silly jokes. Deputy Michaél Martin and those on the Fianna Fáil benches thought he was hilarious but they are easily amused. One of Deputy Cowen's jokes was about the left not being interested in being in government. I would love to be in government, however, and to have the opportunity to frame a budget that represented real change in the country and in the interests of the majority of people, but I have no intention of ever being in government with the party that brought the country to its knees just ten years ago. That was no laughing matter for Fianna Fáil. While it might want to pretend it never happened, it did and I assure its Deputies that it is far from forgotten.

Two weeks ago, during Leaders' Questions, I raised what I believe is a crisis of poverty in the country, which goes alongside the crises in health, housing and homelessness. Dealing with those three critical areas in an urgent and effective manner should be the litmus test of any Government. The reality is that after four years and four budgets from this Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Government, in each of those areas the crisis has become worse. More people are homeless. More people are on housing waiting lists. Rents are soaring out of control. The poverty gap is growing. The budget says loudly, "Crisis, what crisis?"

I notice that very few Deputies from Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael are here. They are not here, they are not listening and they do not care. To put it bluntly, given the number of phone calls I got from constituents over the past 24 hours, youse just really do not give a fuck and it is just absolutely outrageous that this is happening and that people are being subjected to the budget. I will give an example of a woman who came into me on Monday. She rang my constituency office and asked if she could talk to Joan Collins about the fuel allowance, and I told her to come straight up to my office. She has Crohn's disease and has just had a transplant. Her house badly needs insulation. She is on the invalidity pension, while her daughter is on jobseeker's allowance. She applied for the fuel allowance scheme but the reply she received stated:

You do not qualify for this allowance. The means limit for your household is €348.30 per week. Your household means of €365.50 per week exceeds this limit.

She is one of the four out of five families who do not get the fuel allowance and are on low incomes. She needed that fuel allowance to apply for the warmth and wellbeing deal. She cannot do that now. The woman was in tears. Her house has nearly been taken away from her. Her husband has left her and she is dealing with paying a mortgage and trying to make an arrangement with the banks. These are the people who need support. Instead, the group of people who are implementing the budget just pocketed a €30 per week increase in their wages in September. I can say proudly that I have never accepted the increases since 2017 and have given them back to the State because I do not believe we should accept wage increases while others are in this situation and have not been brought up from the circumstances they faced during the austerity years.

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