Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to start on a positive and realistic note. The past 18 months have been pretty horrific for working people in this State. The pandemic has shown us that ordinary working people keep everything functioning, whether that is bringing us to work or looking after us in hospital. Those working people want a dividend, not just on a personal note but also a societal note. That is what budgets are; they are a collective action to make things better for everybody else. The pandemic has changed many things. It was a traumatic event, and after any traumatic event people want something different. What was tolerated before will not be tolerated again. What was accepted before will not be accepted again.

One of the things that come out of the past 18 months - we are not far from being over it - is that the health service in this country is fantastic when a patient enters it. However, for those who cannot enter it, there is a sense of an unequalness. That goes back over decades. The previous general election was about the issue of public services and people not getting them. Our health service must be transformed. It must be equal and accessible to everyone, regardless if you are a millionaire or on social welfare.

Another aspect of the pandemic was ICU capacity. Ireland has one of the lowest numbers of ICU beds in the world. The Minister announced only 19 extra ICU beds compared with where we should be. He said we should have up to 446, but obviously that will not happen. If we continue to add 19 extra beds a year, it will take another 14 years to get up to the OECD levels per capita, which is not acceptable.

The Minister of State's statement today on mental health was quite positive on the suite of issues the budget is trying to address, which is good. The problem is with the overall spend. The historical legacy is we only spend 5% of the overall budget on mental health and we need to get to 12%. There is a significant gap and that gap is not just in the numbers. There is a shortage at the point where people need intervention. The reality is people will die because they cannot get intervention at that time. We need to address the overall budget and get it to 12%. That takes political will and financing, and it is to be hoped that can be done.

I know the Minister said he will address waiting lists and I hope he does. I do not want to be partisan on this. It is important that political action is taken and people are accountable. We have all been elected by the people to do our best but also to address some of the big issues I have just outlined. One of the big issues coming from the pandemic is our health service. While this does not apply to all of us, the people who need to rely on public health have to endure waiting times for surgical procedures. It is not acceptable that people need to wait years for procedures. In mainland Europe or in other countries, people only need to wait a fraction of that time.

That is just not acceptable.

Health workers endured a pretty awful 18 months and they deserved a transformative and radical budget but it was not transformative and it was certainly not radical. It probably amounts to more of the same but there is a price to be paid in continuing this same kind of neoliberal philosophy of leaving things to the market. Sometimes a price must be paid, and this may come in the form of people on the street or people sacking anybody in this Chamber who is not doing their work.

We can go back to the 2020 general election, which seems like an eternity ago, when people voted for change. They voted for something very different from what came before. They did not want the same policies all the time but, unfortunately, this budget is more of the same. It is not transformative and it is certainly not radical.

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