Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There is a lot to discuss when talking about €88 billion in expenditure in a year but I will first raise things that I consider urgent for people who have endured a particularly difficult time, or who are likely to as we face into Christmas. Obviously, a considerable amount of the additional money spent on Covid income supports relates to the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, and all of that. I was trying to get this point across to the Taoiseach and I will now try to get it across to the Minister for the sake of the thousands of mostly self-employed people who are musicians, entertainers, performers and taxi drivers and those who are normally employees in the night-time hospitality sector. I really want to get this message across to the Minister in the hope that he will pass it on in the coming days because whether the Government acts will determine whether people who have had a very hard time over the last two years are going to have a miserable Christmas, or no Christmas, or whether they are going to get a bit of support from the Government.

As we speak, people in those categories, including musicians, entertainers and performers, who are applying for the PUP are receiving letters telling them they will not get it. They are told they are not eligible and will not get the payment. Others are being told they must come in for an interview to determine whether they are entitled to it. Over recent days, I have been inundated with messages from people explaining this to me. Surely it is self-evident and absolutely blindingly obvious to the Department of Social Protection that, given the public health measures, musicians, entertainers and performers have nothing to prove. There will be no work for them for the next four or five weeks at a time when they would have expected to make most of their money for the year. Why on earth are we making these people jump through hoops? Why are they being asked stupid questions such as whether they had four weekly PRSI contributions in the week before the measures came in? Even if they had been working, they would not have these contributions because they pay their PRSI at the end of the year. This is stupid stuff.

People are being refused and are being made to jump through hoops. They face significant anxiety and worry in the run-in to Christmas. These are the people who have been hit repeatedly. Everybody has been affected by this pandemic but who are the people who were worst hit? It was these people. It is self-evident that those who are dependent on the night-time economy, tourism and people going out and about and socialising have been hit repeatedly and are now being hit again. They have been hit the worst and the longest. Frankly, the Department of Social Protection is just making work for itself, work which the people in the Department could probably do without, by making people jump through these hoops a week before Christmas. I appeal to the Minister to pass this upstairs.

The Music and Entertainment Association of Ireland, MEAI, which represents musicians and entertainers and which also works with a cross-party committee on which every party is represented, wrote to Deputy Catherine Martin on 22 November to appeal for a meeting to discuss all of these issues. All of these issues have become even more problematic as we run into Christmas but there has still been no meeting. While some of the supports it is giving out are simple enough because they are being given to standing employers in the funded area of the arts sector or to venues that have set employees, the Government must get it into its head that the vast majority of musicians, entertainers and performers in this country are self-employed individuals. These people's work is gone. They do not have a standing relationship to a particular employer. We should do what was done at the outset with PUP. The default position should be that anybody, particularly people in those categories, who applies for PUP should be given it unless there is a very good reason for imagining a person is not entitled to it. How could they not be entitled to it? Seriously, it is ridiculous.

Another anomaly is that those who were on the scheme under which you could earn up to €960 while still remaining eligible for the PUP are now not able to get the full level of PUP that people who were not on that scheme get. If you were not on that scheme, after 7 December you could apply and get the €350. However, for those who were on the scheme and trying to do a bit of work - it must be remembered there was a bit of work before all of the public health measures hit - possibly to earn a bit on top of the payment, that work has now collapsed. It is not fair to discriminate against that cohort because things have changed. Musicians, entertainers and performers should be entitled to the full level of PUP.

There is another group of people who are continuing to try to work. Some taxi drivers do not want to go out and work because they are, for example, sick, old or vulnerable. I was talking to a woman today whose husband had got Covid. He will not be going out to work in the current climate because of Omicron and so on. There are others who are going out to get a bit of work but there is very little work out there for them. Those people should be able to earn up to that €960 and get PUP. The Department needs to use a bit of commonsense on not holding back on giving people support, whether to people whose work has completely collapsed because of the impact of public health measures and what the public is doing to respond positively to the Government's public health advice, or whether they are people whose work has reduced significantly.

In case it needs to be explained to people, while you might walk out onto the street at the moment and see people milling around town and a few taxis picking people up, the Government has advised office workers not to go to work. This means that tens of thousands of office workers who would normally be in town and using taxis are not doing so. There are far fewer people going through Dublin Airport. The night-time economy has disappeared or been reduced very significantly. People should not be under the illusion that there is somehow loads of work out there for taxi drivers because there is not. There is some work but the level has reduced very substantially. For some, it is not worth it and others who are older or vulnerable are not willing to risk it. The Government should give them support and stop getting the Department of Social Protection to hold out on them.

It is completely unfair so close to Christmas.

Some other groups need to be considered urgently as well. I do not know when the household benefits package was last increased. Elderly people, aged over 70, on this package need heating as we face winter. They are not entitled to the fuel allowance, but they have seen no increase in the household benefits package for several years. Those people need such an increase to help them with their bills in the months to come and, therefore, I ask the Government to please address this matter urgently.

Turning to student nurses and midwives, it is bad enough that it is more than a year since People Before Profit tabled a motion asking for them to be paid when they are on placement and working on the front line. The Government refused, and is still refusing, to pay them for their work on placement, which is deplorable. It is also so short-sighted when we are wondering why we cannot increase the capacity of our ICUs to the level recommended some ten years ago. The answer we are given is that it is not possible to get the staff and that it takes time to train them. It is difficult to train staff because 70% to 80% of student nurses leave this country after they qualify as a result of being treated so badly as student nurses and midwives. We will not, however, pay them while they are on placement to encourage them to stay. If that is not bad enough, the miserable €100 promised to student nurses and midwives was not paid. The miserable concession by the Government was not paid to many student nurses and midwives. For example, we have a major shortage of neurological nurse specialists. The Neurological Alliance of Ireland has been campaigning for an extra 100 posts in this area for some time. Having these neurological nurse specialists available would significantly impact the dire outpatient waiting lists. St. Vincent’s University Hospital should have 22 of these nurses, but only has four. This is where the Government should allocate money.

We must also remember that we do not put the required investment into many areas of our health service nor do we facilitate the decent pay and conditions for the staff we desperately need to build up the required capacity in our health service. We end up paying more in this regard in the long term because we must outsource our needs to the private sector, which then makes money out of that. We pay for this, so we must invest now in the public system in those areas where we need new posts. The area I gave a shout out to is just one in need of extra posts, but the same is true in many areas across the health service.

I have mentioned the need for psychologists on many occasions. It is difficult for people to qualify for doctorates in psychology at a time we have lengthy waiting lists in this area. We need trained psychologists to address them. We are charging students in this area exceptionally large fees. As a result, it is extraordinarily difficult for people to qualify in this area. It is particularly the case for people from working-class and less well-off backgrounds who cannot afford the fees and to sustain themselves during their postgraduate degrees. The result is a shortage of the psychologists who are needed in many spheres of our health service and education system to address the waiting lists. Yet, the Government does not put the required investment in.

Turning to local government, people should know certain things about this area. The average proportion of national income spent by European local authorities is 28%. In Ireland, it is 8%. The money given to local authorities here to provide local services is a fraction of the funding in the rest of Europe. In addition, let us remind ourselves of the big lie about the local property tax. It is a regressive form of funding of local government that we were told at the time would significantly increase the resources available for local authorities to improve local services. Did any of that happen? Absolutely not. Not a cent has been seen. In fact, things are getting worse at local government level.

For example, in my area a fantastic literature festival that was organised by the local authority every year, the Mountains to Sea dlr Book Festival, has been cancelled next year because of a lack of money. There is also no new money for books for the public libraries. Less money is being provided for housing maintenance, despite extensive problems in that regard in the social housing stock. In addition, no new trees have been planted and the pruning service has been reduced, and the money available for street cleaning and local repairs to roads has also decreased. These are just a few of the examples of the situation in our area. People, therefore, end up paying a more regressive form of taxation than they would in the context of central government taxation, which is based on a more progressive income-related tax. Does the LPT produce more money for the local authorities and extra services? Not at all, and things are actually getting worse in that regard.

Another urgent issue concerns Accessible Community Transport Southside, ACTS, Limited in my area. It provides door-to-door transport services for people in wheelchairs or those who have significant and severe mobility issues. It is a fantastic service. Essentially, it is run by a voluntary group of people with disabilities or who are advocates for people with disabilities. By the way, the service is modelled on what the government of Canada does in providing door-to-door transport for people with significant mobility problems, such as those who are older or who have dementia, for instance, because the public transport system will not work for them. This service in my area provides for approximately 6,000 people with such mobility issues. This service is now facing a massive funding crisis because it essentially self-generates its revenue. Some government money is provided, but the group generates some of its own revenue by charging a small fare to the people using the services. The service should not have to do that. People with disabilities and who are in wheelchairs get free travel on public transport, and they should also be facilitated with free travel when using a service such as this. The users of this service do not get that free travel, but they are not even complaining about this aspect. The voluntary group is just saying that it does not now have that revenue stream and, as a result, its service is going to close for the lack, in the immediate term, of €50,000. There is also a need to replace the service's fleet of buses, but the group does not have the money to do that either.

Relatively small amounts are involved here and I have been asking about this issue because it would be a disaster if this service were to cease. We are talking about a group of volunteers delivering a service which, frankly, this State should provide. The sums lacking to maintain this service are really buttons. For want of those funds, this service, which provides transport for these vulnerable people with disabilities and which is organised by their supporters and advocates, who are doing the State's job for it, could be gone unless the State intervenes and allocates a relatively small amount. Again, I appeal to the Minister regarding this issue.

Moving on to inflation and pay, generally, a sort of ideological left-right debate goes on in academic economic circles that suggests the reason we have inflation is workers were always asking for pay rises. Have we not had in recent years in this country, however, confirmation beyond question that this was a load of nonsense? I say that because workers have been held back and received only small pay increases. Indeed, they suffered pay cuts after the economic collapse in 2008, which was not their fault. Those small pay increases amounted to approximately 1%, or whatever, and yet inflation is now galloping past that rate. Inflation has now reached in excess of 5% and that does not even adequately consider the impact of the rising costs of accommodation. As we all know, those are off the Richter scale and are contributing to a major crisis for working people who simply cannot afford rents and the cost of housing, which have gone through the roof. In addition, we now have price hikes in the cost of energy. None of that is a result of workers asking for increased pay.

Are they not now justified in actually demanding that pay? I would say they are. In effect, workers are suffering pay cuts now. If inflation is running at over 5% but people are held back to a 1% pay increase, with the cost of living going through the roof they are in effect seeing their pay cut.

Let us remember that this is all happening while corporate profits have gone through the roof in this country over the same period. Certain people in Irish society have done very well when we look at the Central Bank's household wealth figures. Those are absolutely through the roof as well. It is clearly not trickling down to the vast majority of workers. Somebody is getting very rich in this country and has done over the past ten years. Profits are up and the household wealth of the richest in our country has gone up. Yet the Government will not try to find the funds we need for the sort of things I have mentioned here by imposing a little bit of extra tax on those people to fund the expenditure to ensure workers' pay at least keeps pace with inflation and to ensure we can attract the qualified staff we need in areas like health, education and a whole number of sectors where there is a big shortage of skilled people.

There are not shortages because people are on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. I have heard this narrative coming out of the Government over the past while, that they are all living it up on the PUP. That is nonsense. We should give the PUP to the people who are unemployed as a result of public health measures, but if we want to address the shortage of labour in a whole number of areas such as health, education, construction and so on, we should pay people properly and bring down the cost of living and accommodation by investing in those things instead of lining the pockets of people who are profiting out of the shortages in housing and healthcare capacity.

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