Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

What did the Government do this afternoon? It tweaked the system a little bit. It gave a few crumbs from the table but the rich will stay rich and the poor will stay poor. Many will die preventable deaths frozen in their homes this winter. Let us start with that. An extra €5 on the fuel allowance, which is payable for 28 weeks, means a total increase of €140. We know that, because of market madness, energy costs are due to rise very sharply. They are already rising. They are to rise by €500 or perhaps €1,000 over a year. For every extra €5 or €6 the low-income household has to fork out, the Government plans to compensate that household to the tune of €1 through this budget. This country has the highest excess winter death rate in Europe. There are more than 1,500 such deaths every year. As I understand it, the figure refers to the number of people who die over the winter months in excess of the average number of deaths in any other three months of the year. Those people are not killed by cold alone. They are killed by fuel poverty. The Government's measly measure will not lift people out of fuel poverty. The increase in the fuel allowance should be at least three times what the Government has brought in today. It should be at least €15 per week.

When the pandemic arose, it was determined that the minimum a worker made unemployed by the pandemic should have to live on was €350. As the pandemic recedes, the Government is driving back to the same old, same old. Its budget says that the unemployed worker should be able to survive on a little over €200 per week. Now we have national fiver day. That €5 increase is less than the rate of inflation. The Government is cutting the incomes of people on social welfare and it is cutting the living standards of the poorest people in society.

The low-paid received enormous praise, including from the Government, during the pandemic. Our heroes and heroines in retail, our cleaners, our home helps, people in nursing homes and so on took risks to bring society through the pandemic while on wages that are hardly sufficient to pay the rent. There was an opportunity in this budget to introduce a lasting Covid bonus for those workers. The Government could have introduced a national minimum wage of €15 per hour. Instead, it chose a measly 30 cent per hour. That will be more than wiped out by rent increases alone. In only one society in the entire OECD is a higher percentage of the workforce low-paid than in Ireland. The Government seems determined to keep it that way. I appeal to low-paid workers to organise. If the Government is not prepared to intervene from above to abolish the scandal of low pay through this budget, workers should organise from below to end it. I encourage them to do so.

There is to be a 50% reduction in public transport fares for those aged 19 to 23. That is welcome enough in its own right, but is it enough? No. It is not nearly enough. Half price is a half measure. This is not the time for half measures. We face a climate emergency and need emergency action. Emergency action would mean free public transport for all in our society. That would not come cheap although it would not be expensive as many might think. It would cost €670 million. It is a step worth taking and a price worth paying. It would be far better than the half measure the Government has put before us today.

I bet that every property speculator from one end of this country to the other let out a loud cheer when they heard today's budget speech. The Government's zoned land tax is to be introduced over a period of two to three years. They could not have dreamed the Government would be as generous as that. When it comes in, it will kick in at a rate of 3%. That is pathetic. The vacant sites levy is more than double that at 7%. It is a smack in the mouth for people desperate for affordable housing. It is a gift to the speculators and it shows, if proof were needed, that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are the parties of the speculators and the rich rather than those of working people and the hard-pressed.

I will raise two issues relating to health. Mental health has been the Cinderella of the health service. Some 6% of the public health spend goes on mental health. That is less than half the equivalent percentage in other European countries. Emerging from the pandemic, we are seeing, and will continue to see, a tsunami of mental health issues. What is the Government's proposal? It proposes to increase mental health spending, which is very good, but only by €37 million. The Minister must be embarrassed sitting there. He must realise that this is totally inadequate and that he is failing people who are desperate for help for themselves and for their children.

On the issue of sexual health, many will take a degree of pleasure from seeing an Irish government introduce a free contraception programme aimed at young people, including teenagers. Who could have imagined that back in the day?

The changes that have led to that have been led by the people, not by the Government. The Government has lagged behind the people. It is lagging behind on this one too. Why only 17- to 25-year-olds? Why not other women? Why not men too? Is the Government saying that contraception is solely or first and foremost the responsibility of women? That is completely wrong. The Minister knows he needs to go further on this issue.

The Minister said budget 2022 was a turning point on childcare. It is nothing of the sort. A total of €75 million extra was injected, but we spend a third of the percentage of GDP recommended by UNICEF for adequate and decent childcare. Last year, 28% of net household income in the State went on childcare. Does the Minister know the equivalent figure in Germany? It was 1%. A real turning point would be to meet UNICEF targets and link that to the establishment of something new, namely a free public childcare system. Instead, the Government has chosen to tinker with the existing system and prop up a failed privatised market model. The measures will not work.

The money is there to pay for free public childcare, a free Irish national health service that is free at the point of use, free public transport and so on. A 2% millionaires' tax on the richest 5% in society, even if one deducted €1 million for the principal residence in each case, could raise €4.9 billion.

The Government has ignored the fact that some corporations have made hugely disproportionate financial gains from the pandemic. The pharmaceutical sector is one such industry. Private hospitals are another. A levy of 4% on those two sectors would raise €800 million.

I have not seen it myself, but I have been told there is a programme on Netflix that has become enormously popular called "Squid Game", which is set in Korea. It is about a dog eat dog society where people are forced to face off against each other and compete over scarce resources, which even results in the deaths of people. Why is this such a popular programme at the moment? Is it down to people's interest in Korean culture? No, it is because people get it. That is the reality of life for millions of people in this country and tens of millions of people in other countries who recognise the reality of a dog eat dog capitalist society under the dictatorship of the market.

What I am saying on budget day is that it is not enough to tax the rich and spend the money on social projects, important as that is. It is also a question of who controls the levers of the economy and is in an economically powerful situation to dictate to society. The capitalist market has failed. It has failed on housing, childcare, energy prices and many more things besides. It needs to be ended. We need a socialist alternative and budget. We need a left-wing Government with socialist policies that will not back down from policies of that kind and go right to the end of that particular road.

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