Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a gabháil chuig an Teachta Whitmore as ucht an rún seo a chuir os comhair na Dála. I thank Deputy Whitmore and the Social Democrats for bringing the motion before the Dáil. It is a reflection on how seriously the House takes this subject that there was barely a quorum to deal with this business today. The silence of the Dáil speaks volumes.

In that sense, I feel sorry for the Minister, but perhaps that will give him more inspiration to begin to lead. While I welcome the Minister's speech and the positive things the Minister has said, I am disappointed that there is no commitment to the eradication of poverty. We do not want a reduction in policy. We want an eradication in policy. If we do not that, we cannot call ourselves a republic.

Many references have been made to the Constitution, which I have not time to go into. I refer to Article 42A, where we committed to cherishing all of the nation equally. Here we are in 2020 and we cannot call ourselves a republic if we tolerate poverty. The figures are startling and it does not matter where one quotes them from. There is no getting away from it. I welcome the steps that have been taken but those steps have failed to realise, as has been pointed out by other speakers, that poverty is a direct result of Government policy over the years. For example, one of the strongest messages from myself, from other Deputies and from Social Justice Ireland is that there is a need to build public housing on public land and stop privatising our housing, which is one of the major contributors to poverty. For a long time, social welfare expenditure was up around €19 billion. It is higher now with Covid. Without social welfare, we would have a country full of poverty. It is social welfare that is lifting people out of the poverty. Notwithstanding social welfare, in 2018 almost 680,000 people were living below the poverty line, of whom 200,000 were under 18. I could quote many figures but I do not want to quote figures. I want to appeal to the Minister to begin to look at the policies of the Government and to poverty proof them. Years ago, the Combat Poverty Agency attempted to do something like that before the Government abolished it. We are back now with a motion drawing attention to the levels of poverty in Ireland without directly looking at the cause.

Europe and the European Court of Auditors have been mentioned. One of the articles of the Lisbon treaty, on which we were forced to vote twice to get the right answer, includes a strong commitment to increase our military spending progressively. Can the Minister imagine if we had an article in the Lisbon treaty requiring us to increase progressively our spending to eradicate poverty by 2025? Can the Minister imagine the difference that would make? We can do it with military spending. Can the Minister imagine that we have it in black and white that all countries, including Ireland, will progressively increase our military spending? Following up on that, they have regular meetings to examine how much is being spent and how effectively it is being spent with a view to going forward to a European army, which is for another day's discussion. If we can set such targets for military spending, surely we can set a realistic target to eliminate poverty in Ireland, not only for the sake of eliminating poverty but also because we would then have a thriving economy. Our economy will thrive when we do not have poverty and we realise that we should not be concerned with lifting adults and children out of poverty for their own sake, but for our sake. That is when we will have a true republic and a truly thriving economy, and that is when we will be able to call ourselves one of the fastest growing and richest countries in the world with pride. We will have pride in having eliminated a gap that is a direct result of Government policies.

The Minister has a golden opportunity. We will be behind him. We will work with him, but he must have a target to eradicate poverty and to poverty proof all his policies.

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