Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is nothing new set in stone to deal with vacant homes. There is only €60 million for redress for the families and homeowners who have been victim of the mica and pyrite scandal. There is nothing for people affected by fire safety defects.

The Minister did not mention in his speech - it is in his budget book - that there will be €20 million extra to address the issue of defective concrete blocks, which will bring the total up to €40 million. That is an insult. As a person from Donegal, I proudly marched in the protest but I was not alone. Thousands of us, throughout the State, knew the right thing had to be done by those homeowners who are in those homes because of the light-touch, non-existent regulation when the Minister was in government. This is the Fianna Fáil era that is crumbling around these homeowners' heads and the Minister announced an extra €20 million today, which is an insult. The Minister needs to rectify that very quickly, bring reprieve to those families and say there will be 100% redress and they will not be waiting for long times into the future. He needs to make an appropriate allocation, which we have argued should be €200 million next year, not the €20 million he has proposed as an increase.

This budget is a disappointment for renters. They are being provided with no relief and no answers. It is a disappointment for aspiring homebuyers who, in light of the measures announced and adopted by the Government, face another year of rising house prices and a lack of affordable supply. Our message in Sinn Féin is clear. The housing crisis can be fixed, but only by a government with ideas and the will to deliver regardless of the opposition from vested interests who are served by the status quo and this Government.

As so many struggle to secure a mortgage for their first home, others struggle with the cost of childcare. There is a clear difference between Sinn Féin and the Government when it comes to this issue. The Government parties have faith in the private market and the profit motive to deliver goods and services that we in Sinn Féin believe are best delivered as a public service. Families are being fleeced by the cost of childcare. The average full-time fee stands at €750 per month. Childcare costs in Ireland are the most expensive in Europe, with a recent United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF, report stating that childcare here is among the least affordable in the developed world. That is on the Minister's shoulders. He knows this because it is not by accident but a direct result of Government policy. This Government invests less in childcare than anywhere else in the developed world. As a result, many families are crippled by childcare costs, with many parents who would like to work forced to stay at home. Others face more fundamental choices, such as whether they can even afford to start a family. These are the real and damaging consequences for children, parents and, indeed, for our economy. We have a dysfunctional childcare sector where fees are too high, wages are too low and not enough places exist.

Sinn Féin has called for a new model of childcare provision, one that is delivered and operational in other countries across Europe. A Sinn Féin government would establish a public childcare and early years service, making investments to deliver accessible and affordable childcare to parents. We would do this by assuming the wage bill and additional overheads of the sector, while, at the same time, reducing fees. This new direction in childcare provision could, and should, have started next year. The Minister could have adopted our policy - we would give it to him and would be glad if he announced it - which would slash fees by a third in 2022 and by another third in 2023. What has he done? Instead of grasping that challenge and moving forward with bold reforms, the Government has stolen our policies and made a dog's dinner of them. That is the reality of it. It is ridiculous. Instead of bringing forward a plan to significantly reduce childcare fees for families hit the hardest, families with children under the age of three, it has brought forward measures that have locked in these unaffordable levels of fees. This is crazy stuff. This is one of the biggest pressures on people at this point in time and the Government has not reduced those fees by a single euro. That is again a demonstration of the lack of a targeted approach by the Government. If the Minister has not heard it from parents, let me tell him: childcare fees need to be reduced and not locked in.

In this budget, the Minister has decided to reduce the banking levy by €63 million. I noted he had a different set of words in his written speech, in which he talked about excluding Ulster Bank and others. He is reducing the levy by €63 million despite the fact the taxpayer is still on the hook for a lot of this money. Some €64 billion was ploughed into the sector to bail these banks out a decade ago. I would say I cannot understand this measure, but this is a Minister who has again decided the banks do not have to pay any tax on their profits for the next couple of decades and, therefore, it should not be surprising he is reducing the banking levy. Sinn Féin would have extended it and would have ensured the banks continued to pay €150 million to the Exchequer next year and in the years beyond.

I welcome the budget measure to reduce public transport costs for 19- to 23-year-olds by 50%. This approach has been advocated by Sinn Féin, including proposals to provide free fares for all under-18s. It is obvious the Minister read our alternative budget because, last week, he said we should not do this and that we needed to increase capacity. However, this measure needs to coincide with increased capacity for it to be effective. It is something that my party and I will scrutinise in the budget.

We welcome the decision to relax the means test for carer's allowance. This is something Sinn Féin and carers campaigned for, but the Government has not gone far enough with this measure. It has postponed the move until June and allocated just €10 million for the purpose. If we were in government, we would have opened the payment to many more carers, allocated €50 million for it, further addressed the inheritance issue and introduced what is a crucial measure - a pension for long-term carers.

Our health service has gone through 18 months of unprecedented crisis and challenge. On behalf of my party, I acknowledge the heroic efforts and dedication of healthcare staff who have gone above and beyond to keep our patients and country safe. Despite their heroic efforts, and the widespread support of the public and this Dáil, there is nothing in this budget to deliver fair pay or allowances for student nurses. That is absolutely disgraceful. I cannot believe the Government has not responded to that issue. Every day our healthcare staff have pushed through long hours and have saved lives. They have done so despite our badly managed and underfunded healthcare system. Like their parents, they deserve a budget that responded back by increasing capacity, reducing waiting lists and putting a plan in place to improve conditions and care outcomes for staff and patients. They now face the prospect of a fast approaching winter and are not convinced the Government has the appropriate resources and planning in place. There are already more than 450 people on trolleys State-wide, with emergency departments overflowing and understaffed. There are now 900,000 people on hospital waiting lists, nearly 100,000 of whom are children. This budget should have met the scale of that challenge faced by staff and patients in our hospitals but the Government is again reliant on outsourcing to the private sector, agencies and private hospitals.

The Government health measures are disappointing to say the least. They will not deliver any new acute hospital beds above pre-committed levels and only 19 ICU beds will be delivered next year. These measures fail to respond to the difficulties faced by patients and staff in our hospitals. We called for funding to deliver 600 additional new public beds and 34 additional ICU beds. That is the ambition, energy and determination that was needed and should have been delivered. The Government will blame Covid-19 but we know that is only part of the story. Waiting lists have been increasing to unacceptable levels for a number of years. We needed an unprecedented level of investment targeted at more hospital beds, safe staffing levels, theatre capacity and diagnostics. We needed a phase change and a new direction. We needed to see commitment to building an Irish national health service.

Trust in the Government's commitment to universal healthcare is at an all-time low. Sláintecare, which was to be the roadmap for universal healthcare at the point of need, called for the rolling out of free GP care by 2022 for everyone in the State. Today, the Government has provided for the extension of GP care for 6- and 7-year-olds. Is it any wonder that every Tom, Dick and Harry is jumping ship from the Sláintecare implementation advisory council? It is difficult to blame them. The Government should have invested properly in targeted measures, boosting hospital capacity and delivering an additional 4,000 acute beds by 2028, starting with 600 to be funded next year. We recognise that investing in community services is essential to making healthcare work better and to cut waiting times. We would have invested €200 million on improving the accessibility of primary and community services.

I will raise the issue of the €24 million in additional funding for mental health. This is one of the biggest crises facing young and old in this State, worsened by the lockdowns and the pandemic. That is again an insult and it needs to be revisited by this Government. We needed to ramp up investment in mental health services by putting an additional €110 million into child and adolescent mental health and primary mental healthcare services, expanding counselling to universal coverage and investing in dual diagnosis.

This is the thirteenth time I have responded to a budget and each time there have been different needs in society. This budget has failed to recognise the crisis in housing and the pressure people and renters are under, because there is nothing there. The Government has locked in unaffordable childcare prices when it could have done something completely different.

Increasing the costs of petrol, fuel and home heating at a time of rising energy costs baffles me. This Government is out of touch and out of ideas. We are willing to give the Government the ideas or, better still, perhaps it should leave the job to us.

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