Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too will pick up where I stopped yesterday, when I talked about a republic of conscience. It is incumbent on us to reflect on what services are essential in a republic. I do not expect to hold the attention of the Ministers of State because this has been sold as a fantastic giveaway budget. Indeed, one member of the "supreme court", a journalist, actually clapped for the Minister when he finished speaking yesterday, which was very unusual.

We want a critical analysis and not to come to the Chamber negatively. I looked to the commentators on the ground, including Mr. Michael Taft, Social Justice Ireland and many other organisations. I will consider Social Justice Ireland's statement in the short time I have. It used language it never used before. It stated that this budget "will see the rich-poor gap grow and the real value of the core social welfare rates fall. This is a disgraceful outcome". I do not agree with everything that Social Justice Ireland says. I have serious concerns about its endorsement of the carbon tax but I cannot fault its analysis and its use of the strong word, "disgraceful".

Social Justice Ireland goes on to look at housing in terms of "Vacant Ambition", which is a very good heading. It states that "According to preliminary estimates from Census 2022, there were 166,752 vacant homes on Census night". There were three vacant homes for every household on the list. In Galway city, I understand that homeless people turning up to access services are told those services are full and that they should find a couch, although maybe it is not being put quite like that. I quoted homeless figures of 10,568 yesterday. The Minister of State seems to be always present for this particular part of the debate. I recognise the bona fides of both Ministers of State who are in the Chamber. When they look at the figure of 10,568, at what number will they say it is worth looking at the Government's housing policy and saying that maybe it is not working? Are homeless people just going to be collateral damage? Will it be 20,000 people who are homeless before the Government will say, "Oh good Lord, we really should look at this"? What is the magic figure? What is the magic figure for health? There is a two-year waiting list to get triage for orthopaedic procedures, two more years, if you are lucky, to get on a list and, if you are very lucky, you will be sent to a private hospital in Kilkenny or some other hospital, depending on your definition of luck and so on. If we look at the figures for the National Treatment Purchase Fund, we find we put more money aside in the budget for that.

Of course, the budget in helping people to have warmer homes and food on their plates and implementing short-term measures for that is essential. I welcome that, but such measures have to be part of an overall sustainable plan that has to be transformative. We have no choice. These words have to mean something. When the Taoiseach talked his morning about a budget that is sensible, progressive and fair, quoted the Fiscal Advisory Council and mentioned the ESRI, I wonder what language we are using. What is fair about 10,500 people, and more than 3,000 children, homeless directly as a result of Government policy? What is progressive about that? What is progressive about paying money to back up the huge profits of the energy companies without bringing in a cap on prices and without nationalisation or, at least, a plan to take over energy companies because they are essential? Housing, health, energy, public health and public transport are essential for a civilised society.

At what point after 2019, when we declared a climate emergency, do we realise we cannot go on as usual? We cannot just give money to businesses. I am absolutely for small and medium enterprises that need support but they need support based on conditions that will lead to transformative change. If we are giving money in a non-targeted way to energy companies, those large consumers of energy, such as data centres and all the others, are getting public money. There is something seriously amiss in our mentality. We do the right things when we declare a climate emergency and give extra money to biodiversity, which I welcome, but overall we continue with the same vision of endless consumption.

We give a little hand up to those who are down but we do not recognise it is the system that is keeping them down. We give them a little bit to keep warm during the winter and we worry whether they will need a little bit more towards the middle of the winter but we will have no transformative action.

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