Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday was a truly historic occasion. It was the first budget announced outside of this House and the largest budget in the history of the State. It was also, however, a missed opportunity to make the most of a crisis. We have often heard that phrase used. I refer to using the great deal of funding available to the Government to transform Ireland. The Government has borrowed a huge amount of money, but there will not be major change for real people watching this debate. I welcome many aspects of this budget, and I have said so publicly. Unlike some others, I will not engage in being completely negative. There are aspects of the budget concerning businesses which I really welcome. I also welcome the ring-fenced funding for some groups, particularly those with disabilities, whom I have spoken about at some length here. I am not sure, however, that this budget will have much impact on the lives of ordinary people. In fact, it could be regressive.

This time last year, the biggest worry we faced was the threat of a no-deal Brexit, a threat which still hangs over us. The onset of Covid-19, however, has been a major disruptor, and being a disruptor means that it can actually have a positive impact as well. Things that were unthinkable last year have become reality this year. We have all heard the harrowing stories of loved ones lost, livelihoods changed and people struggling. The pandemic has exposed for all of us aspects of Ireland that were hidden underneath the carpet and out of sight. As my colleague, Deputy Nash, has detailed so incisively, the pandemic has proved beyond doubt that Ireland is a country with a two-tier health service inside a two-tier economy. Everybody has known for decades about our two-tier health service and how some people are being treated based on their incomes and not on their medical needs. All Deputies know the impact that this has had on the lives of people, and how they are forced to wait for treatment for years, with their loved ones anxiously hoping for a positive outcome.

The Labour Party has been campaigning for years for this wrong to be addressed, and we are now calling for a new social contract in Ireland. I encourage the Taoiseach to look at this idea. We have an opportunity to change Ireland and the Taoiseach has an opportunity to change Ireland. In the middle of this global pandemic, yesterday's massive stimulus budget was the greatest chance that any Irish Government has ever had to finally move towards a universal, public, single-tier health system, and to finally do what Dr. Noël Browne tried to do some 70 years ago – to create an Irish national health service.

What did the Government do yesterday? Did it take the radical steps needed as we face the most challenging winter that our health system has ever faced? The answer, obviously, is that it did not. The consequences for people who have suffered because of this state of affairs will be serious and, potentially, long-term. I refer to patients who cannot be seen to because they are on waiting lists and health workers who are stressed beyond breaking point, while doing their utmost to provide services to the public.

They have all been let down by this budget. They do not need any more applause or kind words. They need safe staffing and resources. The collective mental health of our health workers cannot afford to be sold a pup now when it comes to increasing staffing numbers. I listened to the Minister for Health's press conference today and he has to deliver.

The Government has claimed it will deliver an additional 1,146 acute beds and hire an additional 16,000 staff next year. The Taoiseach knows I will monitor this matter month by month. Some 12,500 of those staff have to be in by April, according to a commitment given in this House by the Minister for Health. Will that be done? That is 3,500 from April to December and 8,500 very soon. We must remember those figures because I think people are hoping they will be lost. They will not be lost. I will remind the Government of them all the time. I doubt they are achievable. The best example we have of the health system dealing with large numbers of new recruits recently was the Be On Call for Ireland campaign, and we all know where that ended up.

The Government says it will increase the number of ICU beds from around 280 to 321 by the end of 2021. The real issue here is that we are at about 53% of our total requirement of ICU beds, so we basically have to double them. We needed to use the last few months to do that. We are not going to deliver and we should have been using that time. We might get to a very bad place like the North, which is going to struggle over the next few weeks. We should bite the bullet and do what the Labour Party has proposed, which is to buy private capacity hospitals outright. It would not be a panacea but it would help. Instead of throwing bad money after good by renting them, we should just buy them. Trust me, they are available.

The amount of money being set aside for new consultants simply does not add up. I have done the figures. I listened to the Minister today and gave him a chance to explain them. No Minister in the history of Ireland has ever made so many commitments to consultants. I keep reminding him of it. I would love for him to deliver on those commitments but I cannot see it based on these figures.

The extra 1,250 community care beds are welcome. As the Taoiseach knows, I have a deep concern about how they can be delivered on time and with the staffing in place. On non-Covid healthcare, I am still waiting for the comparisons between last year and this year, three weeks later. If we cannot deliver on those figures, the beds and the staffing outlined in this budget, we are going to have very difficult conversations about how we prioritise people over the coming months.

I welcome what has been provided for mental health and disability, though I have a real issue with the provision for disabilities. I have spoken an awful lot about sections 38 and 39 and my God, that money needs to be targeted. I am not saying that is all the Government's fault. I think the Taoiseach knows what I am saying. It needs to be targeted. I met many people regarding that again this week.

This next issue is within the Taoiseach's gift when it comes to healthcare. There is a man watching this today whose name is John Wall. Others know him as well. I dare say he is a friend of mine at this stage, after a number of years. He is from Ennis in Clare and he is terminally ill. The Taoiseach knows who he is. It is downright mean that commitments were made by the Minister for Health in Fianna Fáil's election manifesto and in the programme for Government to give medical cards to people with terminal illnesses. Only €600,000 would deal with this issue because many people who are terminally ill have medical cards anyway so that would deal with the rest of them. I implore the Taoiseach to please sort this out. These people are terminally ill. Nobody in Ireland, and certainly no one in this House, would dispute the fact that they deserve not to be worrying about medical cards and medical bills. That is the one small ask I make of the Taoiseach. I spoke to Mr. Wall last night and he is very upset about this.

I do not just have questions about health. I have issues with the Government’s housing figures as well. I respect the ambition of what is being put out there but I am just not sure if these targets are deliverable in reality. I listened to what the Tánaiste said this morning and I do not believe they are deliverable in 2021. I also think the help to buy scheme is a farce. It acts as an incentive to drive up prices and facilitates the speculation of developers. All anecdotal and statistical evidence shows that. That scheme is not going to be a success.

It is clear to anybody who studied the detail of yesterday’s budget that both Fianna Fáil and the Green Party were quite passive when it came to the actual deliverance of the budget. It comes across as being very much Fine Gael oriented. There was a long list of commitments to businesses but very little for workers. We know about the PUP not being restored and that a range of tax breaks were left in but there is very little for actual workers and very little to help people maintain their incomes. It is unacceptable that the Government could not deal with the minimum wage and only accepted the recommendation of a 10 cent increase.

What we have in Ireland is not just a two-tier health system but a two-tier economy. That is no longer in dispute. Every economic indicator, from the Central Bank to the Department of Finance’s own projections, paints a picture of two radically different economies in our Republic and two radically different experiences for the people in those economies. The first economy, which is centred on the multinational sector, particularly pharmaceutical and IT companies, is thankfully thriving. Unlike others, I welcome and support that. Such is the growth in this sector, with its many well-paying jobs, that in spite of the shutdown of many parts of the economy this year, GDP is only expected to decline by somewhere between 0.4% and 2.5%. That is a phenomenally small contraction considering everything that has happened. However, that does not tell the full story, because the second, domestic economy, is on its knees, with the Central Bank estimating that domestic demand will fall by at least 7.1% this year. The bottom line is that the official numbers are now indisputable and are showing something the Labour Party has been highlighting for many years. Official Ireland is now finally, at long, long last, waking up to the fact that we have a two-tier economy in our country. There is one economy for the well paid, the comfortable and the well connected and another for low paid workers, struggling families, young families and stressed out citizens. One economy has been relatively well insulated from the effects of the pandemic, while the other has not. Is it any wonder that we have a two-tier health system when it sits on top of a two-tier economy? It does not take a genius to work out which tier of the health service lower paid workers and low-income families are most likely to have to use, or to work out which one of those two, on either side of that breakdown, are suffering the most during Covid. It is always the poorer. The statistics show all of this.

We had an opportunity in this budget to use the disruptor of Covid in a positive way to deal with the issue of childcare. We have a fascinating situation where the owners of privatised childcare, in the mainly privatised childcare system in our country, are not very happy. The parents who have to use the service are not very happy. The workers who went to college for years, who have third level degrees and are being paid under €12 an hour are not very happy. The Government had a capacity this time around to begin the process of reforming and dealing with that situation. It was a golden opportunity which is now gone out the window. We have to invest in our children and our childcare provision. This was the opportunity to act as a disruptor and it is now gone.

If one takes any family in the country with a couple, possibly working in retail, who have young children, one could ask what this budget will do for them. Will they be able to buy a house after this? No. Will their childcare costs in any way go down? No. Will their incomes in any way be higher? No. This is actually a regressive budget for that couple with one child, or a couple of children. The Taoiseach need not bother shaking his head. Do the statistics.

See this speech in context