Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When the Government came to draft this budget, it did so against the backdrop of great crises and challenges for Ireland. It was written against the reality of lost jobs and incomes and the tragedy of lost lives. This pandemic is undeniably the most serious crisis we have faced in living memory, and as Brexit looms large on the horizon, there is justifiably a great deal of public anxiety and uncertainty. This is an emergency budget and the emergency is real. Covid-19 and Brexit, two enormous crises in their own right, taken together create unprecedented challenges for us.

We were told that this budget would deliver the certainty for which workers, communities and businesses are yearning. However, behind the hype of the billions we see that so many people are once again let down, left out and short-changed. Fuair siad faic ach tá laghdú ann do na céadta mílte duine ar an PUP. Tá faic ann do chíosóirí agus do chúram leanaí agus tá ardú ann i gcánacha carbóin. There is nothing but more cuts for the 250,000 PUP recipients, nothing for renters or for childcare and a hike in carbon taxes. I have no doubt that we will overcome and prevail because the Irish people have demonstrated the very best of who we are over the past seven months. They have risen to the disruption, pain and loss wrought by Covid-19 with kindness, compassion, togetherness and resilience. We have seen real social solidarity and the task for the Government yesterday was to meet the standard set by our people. While the budget did many things that we welcomed and for which we argued, it fell short of that standard.

The pandemic has shone a bright spotlight on the things that are wrong in our society, including the perpetual housing crisis, the never-ending overcrowding of our hospitals, the record waiting lists for treatment, the lack of fairness in our economy, especially for low-paid workers, and the travesty of denying the State pension to workers who have done their bit and paid their way by the age of 65. The crisis revealed the importance of affordable childcare to families and to the functioning of a modern, sustainable economy. It also laid bare the heartbreaking consequences for people with disabilities, their families and carers of decades of poor funding and under-resourcing of the services upon which they rely. The pandemic should have been a wake-up call for this Government to fix these things with determination and energy. The budget was an opportunity to begin the work of righting these big wrongs while ensuring that workers, families, communities and businesses have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. This was an opportunity to make a real and meaningful difference for people who have had their lives turned upside down and to provide people with certainty in times of great turbulence, but the Government failed to grasp this opportunity and got it badly wrong.

Yesterday the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, described this budget as one of hope and confidence and there is no doubt at all that hope and confidence are exactly what our people need.

However, to generate that hope and confidence, the Government has to deliver real, tangible, felt improvements, not just slogans, not big figures and certainly not soundbites. When we look beyond the headline figures of yesterday’s budget, we would be hard-pressed to see how it delivers on the Minister’s claim. The reality is that while the Government talks up big figures, many will see only crumbs from the table. If the Minister really wanted to provide hope and confidence, he would have done things very differently. Sinn Féin in government would have done things differently. We would have given certainty to workers, families and small businesses so they can get through this crisis, and we would have also planned to rebuild in a better, fairer and stronger way.

Our first priority is for those who are struggling, those who are just clinging on, having lost their jobs and incomes as a result of this pandemic. We would have reversed the cut to the pandemic unemployment payment. That is what the Government should have done but it chose not to. In fact, the Government is going to cut this payment again in January and then end it in April. The cut is mean, it is economically short-sighted and it shows that this Government, despite all the nice words in yesterday’s speeches, simply does not get it. The Government does not really grasp the hardships facing families who have to make ends meet at the end of each week, when the cost of living is already sky-high and when utility bills up are being hiked up yet again. It does not get that they still have to put food on the table and provide for their children. It does not get that they still have to pay the mortgage or pay the rent.

The failure to restore the PUP exposes those who have lost their incomes through no fault of their own to a greater risk of poverty. It also drains money from the local economy, which has serious consequences for local businesses that are already under huge pressure to stay open and keep their staff at work. Confirmation of the Christmas bonus, while welcome, is no consolation prize. The cuts to the wage subsidy scheme have made it not fit for purpose. The Taoiseach should remember that we worked constructively with the Government to ensure that we had an effective, fit for purpose wage subsidy scheme, but that is no longer the case. The scheme excludes 153,000 low-paid workers in their entirety. Employees with gross weekly pay of less than €151.50 are not eligible for any subsidy whatsoever. What is that all about? Businesses will now only receive €203 per qualifying worker instead of €410. How can the Taoiseach stand over this? It is simply not good enough. The Taoiseach's approach is very short-sighted. All of us know, and have acknowledged, the importance of maintaining the relationship between workers and their employers in a state of readiness for when the economy picks up again. A thoughtful Government would invest properly in sustaining that connection because it makes economic sense.

We need creative ideas that have a real chance of reviving hospitality and tourism, the sectors that have been laid low by this emergency. Bar workers, restaurant staff and tour guides are among those who have taken a frightening financial hit. Tens of thousands of these workers have not seen a day’s work since March. The businesses they worked for have their backs to the wall and are literally struggling to survive. The reduction in VAT for the sector is welcome. However, the Taoiseach made heavy weather of it and he certainly took his time. Sinn Féin proposed a tourism and hospitality voucher scheme back in June. This idea would stimulate activity in the economy by injecting hundreds of millions of euro directly into the tills of businesses that are struggling. Our scheme is detailed, fully costed and has the backing of key industry figures. As well as supporting thousands of jobs, it would have allowed people, who otherwise would have stayed at home due to financial constraints, to get out and about at the appropriate time, spend money and enjoy themselves. The Taoiseach did not take this idea on board. However, just as he came to the idea of a VAT reduction late in the day, the Taoiseach could still adopt this scheme now and make a real difference to these sectors.

During the election in February, housing was the number one issue on the doorsteps. The stories of those in housing distress were, depressingly, very familiar: couples disheartened because the price of a new home is beyond them but who do not qualify for council housing; other families, after years on local authority lists, waiting for a home that never materialises; young people paying extortionate rents to landlords; and no light at the end of the tunnel because successive Governments abdicated to the private market the State’s responsibility for the provision of housing. That is what has happened on the watch of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

This budget could have been a watershed moment for housing but that moment was squandered. Sinn Féin has said we need to see the delivery of affordable and social housing on a scale never seen before. That means 20,000 social and affordable homes in 2021, which is the level of delivery we need. The Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, stated that even when the State was much poorer, we still managed to build public housing and that we would do so again. Unfortunately, the housing measures announced do not match the spirit of his words. There is a housing scheme that puts more money into the pockets of developers and does nothing to deliver homes that are affordable to the average worker. I had to rub my eyes in disbelief when I realised this budget provides for only 593 real social homes in 2021. I can only imagine what those families waiting years for a home will think when they discover this, but I can tell the Taoiseach that they will not feel they have been heard, and they will not feel they matter to his Government.

This budget is disgracefully silent on the needs of renters. There is nothing in the budget to bring down sky-high rents or prevent renters from being evicted. What we got was a billion for landlords and zero for renters. Sinn Féin would reintroduce a ban on notices to quit and evictions, cut rents and ensure no rent hikes for three years. That is the kind of direct action that renters needed in this budget. Instead, this Government has hung renters out to dry once again. The reality is that what was announced yesterday for housing was simply a blueprint for more of the same. It will ensure that the housing crisis created by Fianna Fáil, and deepened by Fine Gael, will continue. It will guarantee that the struggles of those couples, those hopeless families and those exploited young workers will go on and on. That is not acceptable.

The pandemic has shown that the model of childcare provision being followed by the Government is not working and that a re-imagining of how childcare services are provided in this State is urgent and essential. Yet, there is no plan to improve childcare services in the budget. There is nothing for families paying the equivalent of a second mortgage in fees, nothing for 27,000 childcare workers on low pay, nothing for service providers who have struggled to keep the lights on and the doors open during this crisis. Now is the time to start making childcare more affordable for working parents. Sinn Féin showed how fees could be slashed by two thirds over the course of two budgets but the Taoiseach chose to ignore that.

Now was the time to deliver a living wage for childcare workers. Sinn Féin would have immediately increased the pay of childcare workers to €12.30 per hour. The Government also ignored this. This morning, parents, childcare workers and service providers will be looking at this budget with utter dismay and disappointment.

Our health service was buckling under immense pressure long before anybody uttered or heard the word "Covid-19". Decades of underinvestment and mismanagement by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and years of bad health policies have left our hospitals and our people cruelly exposed during this pandemic. That is these parties' legacy.

The failure to increase bed capacity, particularly intensive care bed capacity, is a damning indictment of both parties’ periods leading government. The Government even failed to use the vital time that the lockdown in spring bought to get more ICU beds into the system. It was identified as far back as 2009 that we needed to double our ICU capacity, but we actually entered this pandemic with even fewer intensive care beds than we had more than a decade ago. If ever there was a time for a government to realise the importance of a strong public health service and to invest properly in it, surely that time is now. Even during the throes of the greatest health emergency in living memory, however, the Taoiseach's Government again refuses to give our health service the resources it needs. It refuses to do what needs to be done.

It can be done. We can have a health service that meets the needs of our people. In our budget proposals, Sinn Féin showed how we would begin the work of transforming our health service. We would have ensured certainty for our hospitals by delivering a net increase of 1,110 new acute beds, 100 intensive care beds and 2,500 nurses. We would have provided the investment needed to tackle dangerously mounting treatment waiting lists and to provide adequately for mental health services and cancer care while meeting the challenges posed by the virus. It is utterly scandalous that this budget did not provide medical card coverage for terminally ill patients.

The Government's budget only guarantees a continued sense of crisis in our health service as we face the second wave of Covid-19. A net 41 additional ICU beds and an extra 500 acute beds are not even half of what is needed to turn things around and to ensure that our hospitals are ready and prepared for what is to come. Now, when we are in the grip of Covid-19, is the time to strengthen our health service and to turn the tide of years of doing things the wrong way. The Government again has failed to do the right thing and it will be ordinary people who will pay the price for that failure.

On top of this, the Government did not deliver pay equality for nurses. At this stage, that is shameful. While I am sure nurses appreciate the recognition and support, their superpowers do not extend to an ability to pay their bills or feed their families with applause.

It is not only nurses the Government has failed but other public sector workers who entered their posts after 2011. These workers, including section 39 workers, have stood on the front lines during this pandemic and it is high time that this Government stood up and delivered fair play and fair pay.

It is very telling that the move that has been made on pay is in the form of a miserly 10 cent increase in the minimum wage. This is an insult to the thousands of low-paid workers who kept us going through the darkest days of this pandemic. The Taoiseach will recall that almost overnight many of these workers were suddenly classified as essential. When the chips were down, it was not to highly paid bankers, corporate landlords or millionaire business executives whom we turned. In our time of need, we turned to those who stock shelves in supermarkets, delivery van drivers, supply chain workers and cleaners. The lesson was very quickly learned that these workers were always essential. They are the very workers who rely on a meaningful increase in the minimum wage to pay their bills, put food on the table and to pay rent or mortgage repayments. They are the very people who have been left behind by this budget.

It is lost on no one that all of this is happening at a time of pay bumps for Deputies and when the Taoiseach's Government has gone on a spree of hiring highly paid special advisers. The lack of fairness and genuine solidarity with people who have lost so much is truly staggering.

Only last week, I shared with the Taoiseach the poignant words of those who felt swept under the carpet by the Government during this pandemic and who found themselves on their knees. These were stories of citizens with disabilities, their families and their carers. We have to remember that the disability sector was grossly underfunded and under-resourced even before Covid-19. This emergency just brought things to a head.

I welcome the allocation of €100 million for disability services but it never should have taken this long to do right by these citizens. I commend them, their families, their carers and their service providers because they have taken a stand. People with disabilities were not only the forgotten people of this pandemic but also the people forgotten by government after government, in budget after budget. Much more needs to be done. This budget allocation must be the first step in ensuring that people with disabilities, their families and those who care for them are never forgotten again.

The allocation of €8 million for the Stardust inquest is also very welcome. It is something for which Sinn Féin has repeatedly called. These families have fought long and hard for four decades to achieve justice for their lost children. I am sure we all hope that they will see that day of justice through the inquests.

The absence of fairness in this budget is again seen in the Government's decision to hike the carbon tax by almost 30%. This is a lazy cop-out by the Taoiseach's Government. Instead of going after big polluters, it has decided to place the burden on workers and families. This tax applies to all the things people cannot do without, including petrol to get them to work, gas to cook their meals and home heating oil to keep them warm. It strips away the benefit of the modest increase to the fuel allowance.

Without affordable alternatives, a carbon tax will not save the planet and will not reduce our emissions. It will just make the lives of struggling workers even harder. Similarly, the increases in motor tax will affect those who can least afford a tax hike as well as those in rural areas who are heavily dependent on cars for transport. These are all the wrong calls and they display a real lack of progressive thinking in addressing the challenges facing our environment.

At the general election this issue of the State pension was of great concern, as the Taoiseach will know. We made it clear that every worker should have the right to retire at the age of 65 with their State pension, if he or she so wishes. That remains our position. As we face into an unemployment crisis, especially a youth unemployment crisis, it beggars belief that the Government would insist on 65-year-olds signing on for a jobseeker's payment or being forced out the door to work while waiting for their pension. That flies in the face of the values of the Irish people.

People at the age of 65 have earned the right to be treated with respect and dignity. It is their heavy lifting and their lifetime at work that enabled us to build our schools, hospitals and roads. They have put in their shifts and have paid their dues and their taxes. The Government should have done the right thing in this budget and restored the State pension age to 65.

The pension age should never have been increased in the first place and this was an opportunity to end this disrespect shown to our older workers. I am disappointed that the Government did not take this opportunity. I wonder how the Taoiseach will explain this decision to people who have worked hard all their lives and who he continues to deprive of that basic right.

We have an entire generation of younger people who have known little beyond economic crises for most of their adult lives. First, there was an economic crash created by greedy bankers and now a pandemic has brought so many plans and aspirations to a halt. The challenges facing the class of 2020 echo those faced by the class of 2008, who stepped out of school or college and into a working life surrounded by a collapsing economy, crumbling job prospects and little hope for the future. That crisis was made all the worse by the policies of austerity and cuts inflicted on workers and families by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments.

Now, the young people of the austerity era, who saw their potential and hopes quenched by the recklessness of those at the top and by the failures of Governments, are joined by the young people of the pandemic. A decade ago, young people were scattered like wild geese to Australia, to America and to Canada. The reflexive action of Governments like the Taoiseach's Government has always been to export the problem of youth unemployment. Now, however, even that last resort of the lonely departure lounge is cut off because of the global nature of today's crisis. It is not possible to export the problem this time. The Taoiseach and the Government must face up to it with ambition and new ideas.

We must do much better by our young people, and we have to give them a future at home. There is a real risk that their opportunities and their chance at progress and prosperity will be swallowed up by the Government's poorly thought-out response to this pandemic. I refer to the danger that they will remain locked out of home ownership and locked out of decent jobs and careers, and that they will continue to pay extortionate rents or live at home with their parents into their 30s. Young people cannot afford a Government that repeats the disastrous mistakes of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the last decade. They want a future that is decent, safe and secure. They want a chance at making it. I think we can all agree that this is precisely what they deserve. Why, therefore, has there been no action from the Taoiseach's Government?

Young people will bear the brunt of the choices and mistakes made today. Where is the vision, the ambition and, more importantly, the plan to meet head-on the crisis of youth unemployment now facing Ireland? Where should our young people now turn for their sense of hope, their sense of confidence and their sense of purpose? They will not find it in this budget and they will not see it in this Government. The failure to deliver a strategy for dealing with youth unemployment is a monumental mistake that will come back to haunt our society. Let us not forget the seanfhocal: mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí. Young people, when properly supported and encouraged, can be and will be the engine of our economic and social recovery. We will not stand by and allow the potential of another generation of young people to be wasted. We need action now to secure their futures.

This should have been a budget that laid the foundations of a stronger, fairer and better Ireland. It should have been a budget to provide relief for workers and families and resilience for our public services. It should have been the start of a recovery for our economy and a plan to rebuild. Instead, what has been delivered is a stopgap budget, one that will see us standing still instead of moving forward. We said that the great danger now was not that the Government would do too much, but that it would do too little. We said that the Ireland that emerges from this crisis will be determined by the decisions taken now. This is not only a time for big spending to achieve short-term outcomes, but also a time for big investment in the things that really matter to ordinary people. It is an opportunity, amid all the volatility and uncertainty, to reset our society and rebuild our economy in a way that ensures our people are never again so badly exposed. This is the opportunity that the Government has decided not to take.

The Government has passed it up for more of the same, at a time when more of the same was the very last thing our people needed. Workers and families are crying out for a fresh start. After a decade in which the banks, landlords and vested interests were prioritised by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, this budget should have been the budget where, finally, the well-being of ordinary people was put first. The Government's refusal to do this reminds us that we need change like we have never needed it before. The pandemic has not dampened the appetite for change that was so strong last February; it has, in fact, strengthened it. Things are difficult and gloomy right now, but I will never give up on the belief that workers and families can have a good, prosperous and safe life in the aftermath of this crisis. Giving up is a not a runner. The goal of building a stronger, fairer and better Ireland still shines brightly in these difficult times. It is such a pity and such a wasted opportunity that this budget fails to advance that vision of our country’s future.

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