Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have been inundated with individuals and groups over the last few weeks telling me how this budget has affected them. The general consensus is that it is a bad budget for rural people and certainly for older people. Older people have been left behind. In an €18 billion budget, the Government could not find any money, even a small amount, for pensions and for those who are most vulnerable to a pandemic. There is certainly no money to progress towards a living wage and lift thousands out of poverty, nor is there money to establish a hardship fund to tackle the isolation older people are experiencing. They were told to cocoon, and then were promptly forgotten by the Government. That is grossly unfair.

A double income family, with each member on the average industrial wage, gained a massive €5 in the budget, only to have many multiples of that amount taken back through carbon tax. The community employment, CE, supervisors appear to have been forgotten again for another year. Rural dwellers are being crucified by carbon tax - so much for just transition. There is no mention of renters in the budget. Government policy that has an over-reliance on the housing assistance payment, HAP, to help its landlord friends has led to long housing lists, couch surfers and, unfortunately, an increase in the incidence of rough sleeping. Winter is here and urgent action is required if we are to prevent more deaths occurring. Five homeless people have died in the last two weeks. That is five too many. These people were more than statistics. They were real living human beings and we must do more in that regard.

I often say to people that members of the Government must have nobody belonging to them who has experience of our public housing list or the health service. If they did, they would have fixed both long ago. The people who come to my door are crucified. The situation is inhumane; animals have been treated better. The system is broken and I ask the Government to fix it. If it cannot fix it, it should give the job to somebody else who can.

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