Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It gives me great pleasure to say that I am sharing my time with my colleague, Deputy Bacik, something I could not say this time last year.

This budget takes our State into the second century of its existence. In 2022, we will mark the centenary of the foundation of the State, and that in itself gives us cause for reflection. Coming out of this phase of the pandemic, the need for a deep assessment of where we are, where we have come from and where we are going to is even more acute. What should our priorities be? How can we do things better? What kind of country should we strive to be?

The pandemic has exposed some stark and uncomfortable truths about our society, economy and environment. We have a health system with yawning gaps that could only be filled by taking control of beds in private hospitals. We have a precarious housing system unworthy of a modern republic, where it took a ban on evictions to slow the rise in homelessness, the figures for which are once again increasing. There is a two-tier economy of extremes.

There is the reality of low pay and job insecurity for far too many people. This is a country well behind in its climate commitments.

Thanks to the resolve and downright courage of our front-line and key workers across our society and our innate qualities of community and solidarity, we have come through this unprecedented challenge. It would be churlish not to recognise the decisive impact unprecedented State supports had on securing jobs, incomes and businesses and, importantly, protecting lives at the very worst of times. We should never forget that 5,000 lives have been lost since March 2020, and our thoughts today are with those people's families and friends. We must remember them and honour the dedication of those who put their lives on the line for all of us through a determined effort to make Ireland anew, to reimagine this country, to make a new republic, to shape something better as we approach our second century, to fulfil the early promise of this country, when the Tricolour was raised in Dublin Castle almost 100 years ago, and to translate the values of Tom Johnson's democratic programme into action to make our country finally more fair and more equal. That would be a real pandemic dividend worth more than an extra day off or a once-off cash payment.

History shows us that global crises like the pandemic usher in era-shaping change. It is up to us to determine what that change should look like. Coming out of Covid, this budget was a chance to deliver a new deal for a fairer Ireland. It does nothing of the sort. The four wasted years between 2016 and 2020 were years of missed opportunities. Suffocating economic and fiscal conservatism and a lack of ambition prevented the country from seeing its hard-won new prosperity build the homes we need, design the free education system on which opportunity for all depends and right the wrong of low pay. Based on the evidence of this anaemic and directionless budget, the lessons of those lost four years have yet to dawn on the Government parties. Nothing short of a new deal for a fairer Ireland is needed. Instead, all we get is tinkering around the edges, with a few euro thinly spread here and there.

It is reassuring to see that this Government retains the title of world-class leakers. A strong record on leaking has been taken to new heights in recent weeks. We have had more leaks than we would find in a Welsh greenhouse.

This, in truth, is a budget by committee, and you can see the join. It is incoherent and there is no single, overarching theme, no ambition, no real vision and no real unifying purpose, just like the Government that has produced it. The Labour Party will oppose this budget. It utterly fails to meet the tests we have set down. This budget will not fully tackle the soaring cost of living for workers and those on low incomes. It takes us no closer to the reality of the creation of a single-tier Irish national health service. We are still as far away from free education and a public childcare system as we were yesterday. The budget moves us only gingerly to a real national retrofitting effort for our homes and to a real just transition for workers. Its housing pledges will do little to fix this crisis in the here and now. Tomorrow rents will still rise, waiting lists will still grow, our carbon emissions will not fall quickly enough and the gap between the minimum wage and a real living wage of €12.90 will only widen. The Labour Party will not support the budget.

Last month the Taoiseach could not guarantee my party leader, Deputy Kelly, that the lights would stay on this winter. Miserly Michael's €5 a week on social welfare payments will not keep the bills paid either. Did anybody do the maths? A €5 hike in jobseeker payments barely meets the rate of inflation. A fiver on the contributory pension is below the rate at which the cost of living is rising. The Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, was here earlier. His report for Fianna Fáil is right, and today it is official: Fianna Fáil is out of touch. This is the party that once prided itself on championing pensioners and the small man and woman, as the party would put it. Is it any wonder Fianna Fáil has an identity crisis? Nobody knows what Fianna Fáil is for any more, and that includes many of its own Deputies.

The Government failed to do the single most important thing it could do in this budget, which is to protect fully those who are least well off from the escalating energy and food prices they can do nothing about, and no spin can hide that reality. A fiver a week, after two years of standstill for hundreds of thousands on social welfare, is scandalous. Only those with the hardest of necks will defend this slight perpetrated against the least well-off. In the head-to-head between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, Fianna Fáil lost, and that is the truth of it. Any notion that there is a whit of difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has been buried today. The Ministers, Deputies Michael McGrath and Donohoe, are now virtually philosophically inseparable. You rarely see one without the other. They are the Ant and Dec of Irish politics. They are two very decent guys in their own right, guys I like, but politically indistinguishable one from the other. Pretty soon the Ministers will have to stand one to the left and one to the right to make sure we know what the difference is between them and which one is which.

Fianna Fáil Deputies' failure to convince the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, that the pension must go up by more than a fiver must hurt. Of course, the Sunday Independentdid not refuse Deputy O'Dea's ink this week. He nearly drowned my radio this morning with his crocodile tears on "Morning Ireland". This is what he said in the Sunday Independent. This is good. "Anything less than €10 per week means allowing more and more people fall ... behind." A truer word was never said. I wonder whether Deputy O'Dea and other Fianna Fáil colleagues will have the courage to join their fellow democratic socialist colleague, Deputy MacSharry, in Fianna Fáil purgatory for the next six months in protest at this snub for pensioners. They can always, of course, vote against the budget, but I doubt that will happen.

This package, as it relates to core social welfare rates, is abject. Increases of at least €7.50 a week are required for jobseekers, for example, to cover the rising costs of the basics and the fuel and energy that nobody can do without. With wage rates set to rise by about 5%, it looks to me that this Government has no issue driving a wedge between those who are at work and those who are not and whose jobs may have gone through no fault of their own. That is shameful. In truth - and I hope Ministers will agree with me in the round - we have to end this annual charade which strikes fear into those on social welfare. This is an experience with which I am not unfamiliar from periods of my childhood, my real lived experience that informs my world view and my politics. Will the payment go up? Will it go down? How will I be able to manage? The stress on families is enormous.

It is core rates that do the heavy lifting, the real work of narrowing the gap. The line that pensioners will be better off by €13 a week was bought hook, line and sinker by the print media. It is €13 all right - €13 if you are living alone, are on a pension and qualify for the fuel allowance. Not everyone will, even after the eligibility changes that were referred to today. Every year in this House successive governments fall over themselves to give certainty to big business on corporation tax. When will we give the same kind of certainty to pensioners and others on social welfare? I would like to see a link to the rate of inflation or, better still, a minimum essential standard of living. We must also help the lower paid to meet their rising fuel and energy bills. This is even more important given that the tax changes announced today do nothing for the lower paid outside of a welcome small change to the USC for those on the minimum wage. Nobody who works for a living should have to make a call between food and bills, but that could be the harsh reality for some working families this winter.

As we have proposed in our alternative budget, eligibility for the fuel allowance should be broadly expanded to an extra 130,000 homes and the allowance should have risen, as it did today by a fiver a week, but, crucially, with four weeks added. That has not happened. I note there is no extension in the budget. The Government's plans do not go near what is necessary to help ordinary working families because energy prices will just keep rising. That is why we have called for a new carbon tax credit worth €200 a week for households with incomes below €50,000 and a low energy rating on their home. That would have been a real signal from this Government that it really gets the struggles of decent, hard-working families who slog day in, day out in the everyday economy. It would be a real signal that the Government is on their side.

The working from home relief is really hard to fathom. It is nothing short of a massive subsidy for big companies. There are now about 875,000 remote workers, 95% of whom want to keep working remotely, according to surveys. That is fine. What is proposed, though, is cumbersome, and workers may prefer, for example, a tax credit. I know that was referred to in the tax strategy group papers. The key point is this: why is the State stepping in to take on a responsibility that should be an employer's? This move needs explaining. The tax strategy group advised caution here and said it should be the firm that carries the cost and reimburses the worker through an additional allowance or a pay rise.

When the lights are off in the office, they are on in employee's homes, generating profit for the firm. When we look at the profile of the firms where most remote workers are represented, they are not SMEs; they are major corporations for the most part and they have been let off the hook in this regard. The question is what will be next. Will the State be buying new office chairs for workers' box rooms? That provision needs further explanation.

This is no budget for the ordinary worker. Where is the sick pay scheme that was legislated for in the Dáil last year and proposed by Senator Sherlock in a Private Members' Bill? Why are workers still waiting for it? Why is Ireland still one of only five European states where employees are without the statutory right to sick pay when the pandemic is all but over? We anticipated that the pandemic would be over before the Government would legislate for the type of sick pay scheme that is taken for granted in the EU countries against which we like to compare ourselves. The small increase in the minimum wage leaves us a long way off the living wage of €12.90. In fact, the gap has now widened. If the Government were serious about a living wage, it would lead by example. All State workers and those in all the firms the State engages to do work would be on the living wage. The Government needs to lead by example and stop the tokenism and the vague promises so beloved of the Tánaiste. More than 20% of all Irish workers are on low pay. This is not a new problem. We need to make work pay and value work properly in all its forms. That means making Ireland a living-wage country. This would be a pandemic dividend that is truly worth something.

The Minister knows that I am up for a informed debate on how we should pay for the things we all say need to be done. We need a serious, grown-up conversation about tax, but it is a conversation the Government seems unprepared to have. If the Minister does not want to listen to me, I ask that he heed the warnings of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, listen to the ESRI and hear what the Central Bank has to say. We need to learn the lessons of our recent history. One euro in every five collected by Revenue is from corporation tax. This is sometimes presented as a reflection of our success but I see the risk and danger in it. The windfall is great but it is precarious. Corporation tax is the stamp duty of the 2020s and we know where that ended up and the price that is still being paid in that regard. The Government drives on with tax cuts, however, bribing the average worker with a fiver of his or her own money, when the real value will be drawn from affordable housing or public childcare.

A total of €500 million would make education free overnight. It seems that everyone except Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party can think of a better home for that sum. IFAC has noted that this budget package and the longer-term trajectory under the summer economic statement are at the edge of what is prudent. I will decode that for the House: we cannot spend billions and cut taxes at the same time. The risk to our economy in doing so is enormous. Hundreds of thousands of workers and thousands of businesses paid the price the last time Fianna Fáil tried that three-card trick. The question is whether anyone ever learns. I urge the Government to take the advice of IFAC and ditch the tax cuts for now. It should not insult the intelligence of the Irish people by telling them small tax cuts are good for them. The tax break that has been announced today will not see any benefit whatsoever derived for a retail worker, for example, on the median wage. Where is the truly transformational pandemic bonus for him or her?

It is worth reminding the House of what the Governor of the Central Bank said recently, namely, that "permanent increases in current spending" should be "balanced with revenue-raising measures elsewhere in the budget". Outside of VRT and carbon taxes, there are virtually no new ways proposed today by the Government to raise the money that is needed to treat the sick and house our people. It is relying instead on existing revenue streams and heavy borrowing. The danger here should be obvious, but the Government seems to be blinded by ideology. The Governor, whom we would all concede is hardly a lefty, has proposed the broadening of the tax base and the reduction of certain reliefs to achieve sustainable spending and investment. Yet again, however, the Government refuses in this budget to tax wealth and non-productive assets seriously. It really is beyond belief at this stage, given all the pressures on our public services and the State.

Where each of us stands on the fundamental issues of taxes on wealth, fairness and economic inequality should define our politics over the next decade. Here the stifling conservatism of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael again shines through. For the second year running, the Department of Finance has flatly refused to cost a net wealth tax on assets of more than €1 million. Such a tax is doable; it has been done elsewhere. Research by the London School of Economics, LSE, has proven it can be done but the political will is just not there. This is, again, an ideological blind spot. I get that the Government does not want to tax work overly. Nor do I and nor does the Labour Party. However, wealth should be another matter. The top 20% of Irish citizens wealth-wise have a median wealth of more than €853 per person more than the other 80% combined in terms of the total. The ESRI has shown that €248 million could be generated from a 1% wealth tax on assets of more than €1 million, and double that for a couple, with a mere 1% of total households affected. What is the Government afraid of?

All the research shows that most Irish wealth is held in assets, including development land, investment portfolios, shares and so on, with much of it passed down through the generations. This concentration of wealth hammers social mobility and copper-fastens many privileges in this country. Children born into the top wealth decile in Ireland will be fine, no matter what. Everybody accepts that. There really is no meritocracy for people in this country when we look at it from that perspective, regardless of how early most of us get up in the morning. That is not how a republic should work but it is how this one does. It is incredible that it can take five generations for some children from poor families in Ireland to reach the average income, compared with only two in Denmark. This is an indictment of our system and it should ask questions of us all.

We have another missed opportunity in this budget to make Ireland that bit less unequal. Major reliefs such as capital acquisitions tax are left untouched. A 3% increase in that tax, for instance, would have netted €42 million. This would have doubled the catch-up fund the Government has proposed for the educational development of children whose education was disrupted by the Covid pandemic. My party has shown how an additional €1 billion in revenue can be raised through targeted reductions in expensive reliefs and marginal increases in taxes on wealth, yet the Government has again turned a deaf ear in this budget. We showed how a 0.3% increase in stamp duty on shares - there has been much more activity in the trading of shares over the past two years - could provide €120 million to the Exchequer, with no impact on the everyday economy. There is no argument in favour of keeping schemes for highly paid multinational employees to encourage them to set up home here. The special assignee relief programme, SARP, is a millionaires' scheme. I understand new figures are being released today for the operation of the scheme in 2019. The previous figures we saw suggest that 18 people earning between €1 million and €10 million benefited from it in a single year. That really is some hustle and it has been supported by the State. The scheme needs to be reviewed; in fact, it should be closed down, which would save €42 million that could be better spent on the provision of public services for everyone. The story of SARP is one of fewer jobs propped up by an ever-increasing cost to the Exchequer.

The system of tax breaks and reliefs is stacked in favour of high rollers and those in the know. For a large part, they are not the wealth creators. The evidence shows they are the wealth keepers and it seems the Government plans to keep it that way. It is our view that we need to move to a new national industrial strategy that focuses on developing high-potential, innovative Irish firms to export more and grow globally from here. A wholesale review of how that can be done must be undertaken, including a review of the effectiveness of many of the existing reliefs, which are anachronistic and outdated, if they were ever required at all. That review is especially needed on foot of the welcome signing up by the Government to both pillars 1 and 2 of the corporation tax reform agenda. Our excessive reliance on foreign direct investment for high-quality jobs and tax receipts has been exposed by this process and it should serve as a wake-up call for us all.

A headline in The Irish Timesyesterday, "HSE and private hospitals in talks over tackling 900,000 waiting list", made me shudder. The people who run the private hospitals are rubbing their hands together. They have the HSE over a barrel and they know it. They can see the HSE coming and can name their price. This is not what Sláintecare, four years on, was supposed to look like. I note that the Government plans to spend €250 million on an initial plan to clear some waiting lists. In truth, it would be better off taking Deputy Kelly's advice and buying two private hospitals outright, thereby accessing an additional 200 to 300 beds. It would be more cost-effective in the long run. It would be a bold move, which would act as bridge to Sláintecare, and a real signal that the Government is committed to the single-tier Irish national health service we got a flavour of in 2020 and early 2021.

Unfortunately, the Government seems intent on sidestepping its obligations in respect of the evolution of Sláintecare.

The Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, is expecting a clap on the back for announcing that those aged seven and under will have access to free GP care. It is a scolding that he should get. It was Alex White, my former colleague, who in 2015 brought in free GP care for those aged under six. Six years on, the age limit has gone up by a year. At this glacial rate of progress, it would take 400 years to get free GP care for all and a universal primary care system but still the Government goes for tax cuts first. It is a source of real shame that Ireland is the only country in the European Union without a universal system of free GP care. Bringing all children, not just those aged seven and under, under the umbrella of free GP care would cost just €80 million for next year. That would be a real pandemic dividend and bonus for children and working families but again in this budget the Government has shown a paucity of ambition for public healthcare. How can we take the hollow commitments of Sláintecare seriously if the Government refuses to fund the very foundations of a universal basic care service in the community?

Now that the days of cut-throat corporation tax competition are at an end, this country needs to look seriously again at how it can be competitive. A good start would be to make the education system genuinely free. As the Taoiseach will accept, given his record, education is the great social equaliser, but only if one can afford it. I note that the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, got herself a piece of the budget action with her dramatic plea at the so-called last minute for 1,000 special needs assistants, SNAs. That is nothing to be proud of. Why was it last minute? Is it not important enough to have been boxed off early? It is more spin - it is all spin - and we can see through it. What the Minister should clarify is how many of those positions are to meet demographic demand and how many are real additional places to meet unmet demand. As Deputy Ó Ríordáin has pointed out, for an extra €40 million, schoolbooks could have been made free for all primary and secondary school students, but the Government chose not to do this. It is more tinkering around at the edges and no real vision for education and public services.

Of course, any positive changes that make it easier for young people from less well-off families to reach and stay in third level education are welcome. That is a given. Some changes have been made today in respect of the grant and so on and many people will benefit from that. Will the Taoiseach give a commitment to backdate the changes announced today to September of this year, or will the changes be coming in next year? All present know the experience of third level students in the past two years. It has been horrific. We need to invest in them and support them. Our future success depends on research and development, innovation and collaboration between third level and fourth level education and industry, as well as on a steady stream of talented and ambitious graduates coming through the system. The colleges need to know where they stand in the context of funding. They are currently running to stand still. Of course, biting the bullet on how third level and fourth level education is funded is not easy to squeeze into a TikTok video. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, opens his social media accounts more often than he opens the Cassells report. That is the sad reality.

The EWSS has been a really successful initiative. It has kept people in work and tied them to the firm for which they work when there was a real risk that people would lose their jobs and be forever lost to that sector or firm. The scheme runs out in December but I note the Government has announced that it will continue to fund the scheme, at least until April next year. It is an expensive, albeit necessary, form of what might be described as corporate welfare, but here is the rub. There is not a single condition attached to an employer for usage of the scheme. This budget offered a chance to attach conditions to the scheme in return for a wedge of taxpayers' money - it will cost an additional €1.26 billion, according to the detailed figures in the pack distributed today. The Government could have attached conditions, such as that nobody on the scheme could lose their job. It could have attached conditions to create a new German-style wage subsidy scheme that would enable those who may be working part-time and being resourced and supported by the EWSS to upskill and retrain for the jobs of the future. That is a significant missed opportunity and, frankly, it is really poor public policy-making.

Similarly, it was announced that the 9% VAT rate for the hospitality sector will be stretched out into next year. It will remain in place. I understand the motivation of the Government is to support that sector but, again, no conditions whatsoever have been attached in the context of a sector that is absolutely obsessed with low pay and insecurity. There is something at the Government's fingertips to which it could have reached. In 2012, the Dáil legislated for a joint labour committee system to allow for employers and workers, represented by their trade unions, in the hospitality sector to come together to set basic minimum pay above the rate of the national minimum wage and set decent terms and conditions. However, employers' groups consistently refuse to engage. They essentially veto the law of the land. That is an abject failure of Government policy.

I note that I have approximately three minutes remaining for my contribution. I refer to the Government's actions or lack thereof in respect of housing. It is interesting that it has announced a new zoned land levy involving a reduction from 7% to 3%. All present are aware that the existing levy is being operated by the local authorities but is not operating well. This levy will be operated by the Revenue Commissioners. I am interested to learn more about the evolution of the levy.

There is zero support for renters in the budget but there is the extension of some reliefs for landowners. There is no reference whatsoever to a vacant homes tax to bring more homes into use. As my colleague, Senator Moynihan, constantly reminds us, there is a demand for such a tax to make sure we can use the properties we have to get people into the houses we have now. We are being asked to wait until the end of the Housing for All strategy to deal with a housing problem that needs to be dealt with today. A tweak here and there to the housing assistance payment and to rent supplement will simply not do the trick. Some weeks ago, when the House was debating the renters Bill brought forward by Deputy Bacik, I appealed to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to adopt a three-year rent freeze as Deputy Bacik has proposed. That would act as a bridge between the here and now and the end of Housing for All when supply will be improved.

Again, no ambition has been shown in respect of local authority houses. The Labour Party would have provided additional capital allocations to build at least an additional 2,000 public homes on public land this year, building on what is already committed to in Housing for All, and would have focused on seed funding for an additional 8,000 affordable homes and homes that would be introduced into the build-to-rent scheme. The budget shows very limited ambition in respect of the biggest social issue facing the country at this moment.

I welcome the changes that have been made in respect of overseas development aid. Those changes will be welcomed by Dóchas and others working in that space. It is important that we use our wealth to support the less well-off across the world and take seriously our contributions as a very active member of the United Nations and the UN Security Council to fulfil our obligations to the developing world. The increases in question are very welcome indeed.

Coming out of Covid-19, we had a real opportunity to introduce transformational change and to bring Irish public services up to a European standard. Instead, we are going back to the status quoand the old way of doing things, bribing Irish workers with their own money - a fiver here and a fiver there - when, in fact, we would be much better off using the resources we have to invest in the public services that everybody needs. It seems to me that lessons have not been learned from Covid-19. The Labour Party will not be supporting this budget.

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