Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste, Deputy Leo Varadkar, surprised the nation on Monday night not by his cynical attack on NPHET, not by his undermining of public health advice in general in an extremely dangerous way, but by his newfound concern for ordinary people. All of a sudden, Deputy Leo Varadkar is a champion of mental health, opposed to poverty and stands up for the ordinary worker. He forgot how it was his Government which slashed the budget for mental health in the last term. He forgot that, just last week, he voted against a motion to eradicate child poverty. Most of all, he forgot about his actions in regard to the ordinary worker because he said nobody on NPHET will have to go onto the PUP of €350, or now €300 or less, as a result of going to level 5. He did not mention, of course, that he is not going to have to either.

What he also did not mention is that his Government is responsible for cutting this already inadequate amount of money. He bears responsibility for that. He also failed to mention that, earlier this year when he was Taoiseach and when the Government started talking about cutting the €350 payment, I challenged him to live on €350 per week, which was the sum before he cut it. He did not take me up on that offer, nor has any Minister.

For the Government, it seems that a cut of €50 in people's weekly income is not a big deal. What is €50 for them? For a Government Minister, €50 is a lunch or a bottle of wine, but for families across the country, €50 is the groceries for half a week or more, the gas bill for a month or a few weeks of electricity. The sum of €50 may be spare change for the Taoiseach on his €550 a day salary but for those on low incomes, whether the Government knows it or not, it is the difference between being able to get by in lockdown and simply not being able to get by. We have a Government of millionaires protecting the billionaires and hammering ordinary people.

Thousands of pub and restaurant workers are out of work today as a result of the Government moving to level 3 last night. Thousands more retail and other workers fear they could be next. They need and are crying out for support but the Government is turning its back on them. In March, the Government accepted that no one should be driven into poverty or homelessness by following the health advice. That is what the €350 payment was about: it was the Government accepting that that is the minimum people needed to survive. Now, however, this Government of millionaires is telling workers that €350 a week is too much for them.

These are hard-working people who have sacrificed a lot to fight the pandemic. They have lost their jobs and the Government wants to take their dignity away too. It is time to reverse the cut to the PUP and to restore the €350 payment. Why does the Government say it cannot do it? During Question Time yesterday, the Taoiseach came out and simply said that we cannot afford to do it. It is funny, but we never hear the Government say it cannot afford to hire another special political adviser or to pay another full salary for a Minister of State. The line only ever appears to be trotted out when it comes to supporting ordinary people.

It is a lie. The idea that we cannot afford to pay people a minimum of €350 a week to survive is a lie. The reality is there is huge wealth in this country but the Government of millionaires is more focused on protecting the billionaires from taxes than it is on protecting ordinary people from poverty and from homelessness. The reason the Government says we simply cannot do it is because it is unwilling to touch the amassed wealth of the super-wealthy and the billionaires in this country, it is unwilling to tax the massive profits of the corporations and it is unwilling to go after the likes of the Larry Goodmans, the Denis O'Briens and the elites in this country who have huge amounts of money. It is unwilling to do it, but it is willing to make the supposedly hard political choice to stick the boot into ordinary people.

The truth is Ireland has the fifth highest number of billionaires in the world per capita. The truth is Ireland is the fifth richest country in the worldper capita. There is enormous wealth in this society but the Government refuses to go after it because that is the nature of the capitalist system that it defends and the rule of profit that it defends. There is a growing movement across Europe about who is going to pay for the coronavirus crisis, a movement which says ordinary people, workers across Europe, should stand together and we should refuse to pay. We are not paying for this crisis. Instead, we are calling for a Covid tax on the super-wealthy and the big corporations to pay for this crisis.

I will give an example of the amount of wealth that exists within our society. One of the four demands of this movement for a Covid tax is the idea of a tax on the assets of investment funds and holding companies. An emergency 1% tax on the assets of investment funds and holding companies in Ireland would bring in almost €24 billion and it would still leave those companies with hundreds of billions of euro. That is taking 1 cent from every €1 of these holding companies and investment funds, a drop in their vast ocean of wealth. A tax on property transfers at 2% would raise over €1 billion. Increases in tax on net corporate profits exceeding €5 million and a wealth tax would bring in over €10 billion between them. Instead, the Government prefers to cut the income of some of the poorest in this State.

Many people realise that this rule of profit is what is responsible for the ignoring of the public health advice this week and for saying we cannot afford to pay people the minimum of €350. Among people who realise that is the nature of the capitalist system, many will say we cannot afford that system. We cannot afford a system which puts short-term private profit first and which refuses to pay the basics for people to survive in the context of a global pandemic. We simply cannot afford that system. We need a different system, a socialist system, based on public ownership and democratic control of the vast sources of wealth, so that everybody can have a decent life.

To conclude, I want to make a particular point aimed at the Green Party.

It should be ashamed of itself. Its Members stood in the election claiming to stand for social and economic justice. They claimed to stand for tackling inequality. Despite that, only a small number of months in the door, they have already signed off on the cut to the PUP and, without so much as a squeak out of them, are agreeing to drive thousands into poverty. Fianna Fáil Deputies have been more sly, which is typical of the Fianna Fáil approach. They speak out of one side of their mouths and are supposedly campaigning to restore the €350 but are actually letting it be cut. Presumably, they will vote in favour of that cut in next week's budget. Green Party Members have not even done that. They have just sat there silently like a schoolchild in the principal's office doing whatever they are told to do by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Those Green Party Members who previously spoke out against cuts to social welfare and in favour of social equality should speak up now. They should support this motion to restore the PUP's €350 payment, support arts and entertainment workers and taxi drivers, demand that the Government does likewise in next week's budget, and vote against any budget that attacks ordinary people further by maintaining this cut.

We should remember where these cuts came from and the drumbeat of calls to cut the PUP, which was led by Mr. McDonagh from Supermac's and other businesses. It was part of an assault on ordinary workers generally because businesses wanted to drive down general wages in our economy. This is linked to yesterday's pathetic 1% increase in the minimum wage. It is about using the pandemic to reshape the economy in the interests of the 1% and to drive down wages, conditions and rights generally.

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