Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am mindful today that I am speaking in response to the finance portion of the Bill, not just as Green Party spokesperson on finance but also as a Teachta Dála representing Dublin Central. My constituency is home to many thousands of people who are among the most vulnerable in our society. We have some of the highest rates of homelessness, single parent households, children living in poverty, addiction and unemployment in the country. In short, I represent a constituency where many people will be unable to cope on their own with the impact of this unprecedented crisis and will not have the resources to make it through without the help of the State and their community.

I would like to commend my constituency colleague, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, on the work completed so far. While there is always more work to do, there is a clear intention in the Bill to ensure that our constituents are protected in the face of this national health crisis.

I am a new Member of this Dáil and I am sure there have been some years where Members proceeded with the business of legislation and governance with hard work and little fanfare. I am also sure that there have been some years that come along once in a generation, ones that, whether by design or necessity, reshape our communities, set a new course for our nation and set a new normal for all of us. This is one of those years, and I believe that this Dáil and the Minister have made a good start. In the coming weeks and months, we will see our economic outputs and infrastructure put under unprecedented pressure. A downturn triggered by a pandemic is different to other kinds of economic contraction and will require a unique package of financial measures, one that is broader and deeper and asks more fundamental questions than we have up to now.

The measures introduced last Thursday and added to today effectively begin the work of providing a basic income to all and is a meaningful safety net for a large proportion of people in this country. We will need to work together in the Chamber to ensure that is universal and every person is seen and cared for. In the short-term, all of our collective effort must be focused on saving lives but people's livelihoods must also be maintained. Our new normal recognises that everyone deserves a minimum standard of living and that the State can and should play a role in that.

Our new normal recognises that the caring economy - one that has been so long under-recognised in this country - has real worth. Carers matter. People who work in the home matter. People who volunteer matter. Those people up and down the country who are buying groceries for their neighbours and who are ringing their elderly relatives matter. In an era where a pandemic is the reality now and may be again, our new normal should provide everyone with a basic income. As we move through this period of crisis, we should consider what it reveals to us about what we truly value as a society. A recognition of the need for and the achievability of a decent quality of life for everyone in our community through the provision of a universal basic income would appear to be one of them.

In this new normal we all have a responsibility to look seriously at the foundational core of our economy from its functional elements and its infrastructure through to insurance services and SME supports. The announcement by some banks over the past week of a reduction in banking services, the closure of branches and the difficulty some will find in accessing mortgage breaks and the real issues with those breaks highlight like never before the real need for a more public-focused banking sector - one that is based on regional and community solidarity and that considers its responsibility to provide services to those with disabilities, older people and those who are unable to access online services as a public service. We can now see the critical role that our local post offices and our important credit unions must play in a fully functioning and caring society and how important it is that we now progress with serious proposals for public banking that utilise our existing resources.

As these measures take effect in the days ahead and as stimulus packages are developed in future, every Member of this House must prioritise industries and businesses that demonstrated solidarity with and responsibility to their community. We must resist the provision of our finite public funds to sectors which will go on to create further catastrophes for the planet and for the people on it. We must focus on the resilience of our communities and on our national infrastructure to ensure that we are better equipped to deal with this crisis and others to come. We must work with the European Union to provide responsible financial aid packages which will protect our public services and, importantly, our public assets. This legislation, which seeks to provide everyone with a safety net, suggests that it is time to trade our old habits for a new spirit of community, social equality and climate justice - an economy based on people's needs and their quality of life. The scale of this legislation is unprecedented but so is the severity of the Covid-19 crisis. Our aim to protect and safeguard everybody must be of a similar ambition.

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