Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle. The rainy day fund of €1.5 billion was already drawn down for budget 2021. The initial plan to set aside €1 billion per year has already been reduced down to €500 million per year due to the exceptional circumstances of Brexit. Now we have the further exceptional circumstances of a global pandemic. We had to have this motion not to pay the prescribed amount put before us.

Many of us in opposition argued at the time that the €1.55 billion and subsequent annual amounts would be better spent on much-needed infrastructure. We asked for housing, schools and actions to address poverty. This year, we have seen that the underinvestment in housing has exacerbated the spread of Covid because so many live in cramped and overcrowded accommodation. We hear about schools thinking about taking more time off over the winter because they do not have proper ventilation systems to keep teachers and students warm and safe.

In January 2019, during the Second Stage debate on the National Surplus (Reserve Fund for Exceptional Contingencies) Act, Fianna Fáil claimed it had the rainy day fund idea in 2015. In that debate, the now Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, said to the current Minister for Finance, "I am sure the Minister will take the advice of the NTMA, which will have delegated authority in this matter, that at least some of the fund could be put on longer term notice so there may be some return available for the fund to be delivered." I am sure the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, is now glad the Minister for Finance did not take his advice. We would not even have access to these needed funds if he had.

For decades, majority Governments of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have misspent public money. There is plenty of money in the country but their priorities are all wrong. Recently, in our lacklustre efforts to address climate change, we agreed to pay €50 million to Estonia and Denmark to make up for us missing our target. The statistical transfer of 3,500 GWh of renewable electricity had to be paid for. What other fines will we have to pay the EU for missing our agreed targets?

I said in other speeches during the term of this Dáil that the Covid-19 pandemic has already highlighted the inequalities in our society. The normal social protection payment of €203 per week — for the disability allowance, for example — was deemed far too low for those who were temporarily laid off. They were to get €350 per week. I am not saying that the pandemic unemployment payment should have been lower; I am saying our basic protection payments should be higher. Our student nurses and midwives could be paid as well.

This week saw the publication of the results of the Fundamental Rights Agency's survey on the lives and conditions of Travellers and Roma in six EU member states, namely, Ireland, France, the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium. The survey found that 31% of Irish Traveller households are living in acute poverty. Of the six countries, Ireland's poverty rate was the highest. Surely that is an embarrassment for us all.

In September 2020, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul's online conference on tackling child poverty before and after Covid-19 highlighted the level of food poverty and hunger in single-parent households, calling it tragic. At the conference, the CEO of One Family, Ms Karen Kiernan, stated her organisation had never dealt with so many food and hunger issues. She said:

Everywhere people with children were talking about families being hungry. They have had bigger food bills because the children were at home.

Before Covid, many schools had breakfast clubs and school meals, but these safety nets fell away when schoolchildren were staying at home.

On that point, the Citizens' Assembly on gender equality is meeting online and continuing its important work. On Saturday last, 5 December, it met to discuss the following topics: identify and dismantle economic and salary norms that result in gender inequalities, reassess the economic value placed on work traditionally held by women; and scrutinise the structural pay inequalities that result in women being disproportionately represented in low-pay sectors. The assembly is doing important work in exposing the gendered aspects of our policy decisions. The presentation showed that because our tax and social welfare systems are based on the male-breadwinner model, they are more likely to leave women in poverty when they reach pension age. Dr. Adele Whelan of the Economic and Social Research Institute presented research showing men have an average weekly pension income of €433, compared with just €280 for women.

At the beginning of October, the ESRI's quarterly report highlighted the disparities between the domestic economy and the export economy, showing that exports held up quite well during the Covid pandemic. The author, Dr. Conor O'Toole, stated:

[In] 2021, we are facing the perfect economic storm of a no-deal Brexit coupled with ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. While a rebound could be expected next year even with public health restrictions, any recovery would be stopped in its tracks by a no-deal Brexit.

The first day of January is fast approaching. The perfect economic storm is not of our making and we will have to brace ourselves for it, but, as usual, it will be the most vulnerable, the many, who are left out in the rain. The rainy day fund of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party was only ever meant for the few with the big golf umbrellas.

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