Dáil debates

Wednesday, 17 November 2021

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

12:17 pm

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some 63 days ago I said to the Taoiseach that budget 2022 must be different. I pointed out that we had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restructure our economy. Sadly, that did not happen. Budget 2022 was just a little bit for everyone. The families who are just over the income thresholds for various State supports have again been forgotten. These are the hard-working families, the so-called squeezed middle, who pay for everything and who have remained invisible when it comes to State supports because they may be just a few euro, or sometimes just as little as €1, over some arbitrary income threshold. Take childcare as an example. It is one of the challenges faced by many of the families in question. An average family spends 12% of its disposable income on the care of a three-year-old child. That is, of course, if it is lucky enough to be able to secure a childcare place. While the budget 2022 childcare changes are welcome, the families will see an average disposable income gain of 0.2%, according to the ESRI. However, low- or middle-income families will actually lose part of their subsidy due to the freezing of the childcare income thresholds for 2022.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the story is not much better. Take the case of Stephen, for example. His father is a school caretaker and his mother is a school cleaner. Stephen, because he earned an extra €1,000 from his part-time job just to be able to afford to go to college, ended up €2,500 down as the extra income brought him over the SUSI income threshold. Budget 2022 increased the SUSI grant thresholds for the first time in a decade but this will do little to alter the trend we have seen over the past six years, which shows that while student numbers have risen by more than 17%, the number of students in receipt of the SUSI grant has fallen by 6%. I am afraid that the €200 increase to the grant next year will just about belatedly cover the increasing cost of energy, and little else.

The point I am making is that, by the end of December, the invisible middle – the people who get up early in the morning, who keep the doors of our businesses and services open and who pay their taxes every week, fortnight or month – will, because they do the extra hour of overtime, find themselves worse off for working hard, just like Stephen. That is why I believe the Government must restructure our whole economy.

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