Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to build on the case made by Deputy Troy. There are many ways of helping people and the reality is there is no point in getting the money in if people are paying out an inordinate amount of money unnecessarily. The reality is that the cost of living in this country has gone through the ceiling, particularly for those at the bottom of the scale, that is, those on lower incomes.

When we look at housing, rents are totally out of control. Given the system operated under HAP, once people go over a certain level, they can run into trouble. They cannot get on the HAP scheme because at €25,000 or €26,000, in certain cases, they are just not eligible, whereas, on the other hand, they cannot afford to buy a house because nobody will lend them the money. The Government has made a total mess of housing, in particular for those who depend on public housing or would be clients for affordable housing, if any such thing existed in the State.

The second big problem families face is the inordinate cost of childcare, which must be tackled. If people are earning €150,000 a year, they will complain if they have to pay large sums of money for childcare but they have the means to do it. However, for people on the minimum wage or even just above that, it becomes doubtful whether it is worth their while working because most of their income is going to keep the children in childcare.

We then look at the cost of car insurance, which has gone through the ceiling. Many people have no option but to use a car, particularly when they have children. Whether they are in urban or rural Ireland, that is a reality. Many households, if they have two jobs, require two cars and this is particularly so in those parts of the country where the Government refuses to provide public transport. Again, this is eating up a disproportionate amount of people's income.

We then have the tax code. There was a policy to progressively reduce USC, which was brought in as an emergency measure in emergency times. Moreover, the basic tax credits have been left the same since 2010 or before that. Of course, this means that, at a lower and lower income compared to the norm in society, people face paying tax, and the USC starts once a person's income is over €12,000 a year.

These are all measures the Government could tackle without putting up the cost to the employer. Deputy Troy made a good case about the challenges facing small employers if we start putting up their costs, given all the other costs they face, such as insurance costs. The other way of doing it, of course, is to make a more equal society. There are people who say it is not worth their while working because the cost of childcare is eating up everything and because they have to travel 20 or 30 miles to work. There are those coming into this city who cannot use public transport for one reason or another, and they find the day is inordinately long because they leave their children into a crèche very early in the morning and collect them in the evening, and there are proportionate costs associated with that.

When the Minister looks at the statistics in her own Department, and if she does not know where to find them I will tell her someday, she will find that many people on low incomes tend to leave work because it just does not pay once they have to pay for childcare. They then find that a one-income family on the same income pays a lot more tax than a two-income family if USC is counted as tax as well as PAYE. That is the reality, and the difference between the two salaries added together and one person earning that is quite enormous. One-earner families are therefore totally discriminated against.

There are many things the Minister can do. The status quois not acceptable. I know where Sinn Féin is trying to go. I do not agree with it because it does not solve the problem. The main problem families in this country face is the cost base of living. Providing more income while still allowing the cost base to spiral for very basic things we all need does not solve the problem; it just moves the goalposts back to where they were initially.

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