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

We welcome this particular measure and support it. It was much trumpeted in advance that the Government was going to give a serious break to working people. However, as has been said, overall that has not panned out in the budget. Some of the examples provided in the Government's budget book of tax policy changes that were so much trumpeted have turned out to be unfair and pretty derisory. I mentioned this earlier. Those earning between €25,000 and €35,000 make up a significant cohort of workers. A single private sector employee will be only €4 better off, which is pathetic given the scale of the cost-of-living crisis and that these people are on pretty derisory levels of pay. Given the same cost-of-living hikes that people are facing and the rents they have to deal with, the derisory 80 cent increase in the minimum wage is a drop in the ocean.

It is worse than that, given the situation we are now in. In real terms, people are going to have less. That is the truth. Then we have the inequity of people in the higher income brackets. Whereas the ones I mentioned between €25,000 and €35,000 will get €191 over the course of the year, someone in the higher income brackets will get €831 a year. Another table shows a married couple with one income, who have no children, and are private sector employees. People at the highest income levels get €900 a year, whereas the ones between €25,000 and €35,000 only get €266 a year. To be honest, I just do not know how the Government could have designed something like this. Despite all the spin and all the trumpeting, the people who are being most crushed and crucified with the cost of living and the housing crisis, and who need the most help, have been very badly let down in this budget.

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