Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I was not going to start in this way because it sounds sort of Dickensian, and it is, but having listened to some of the Government Deputies eulogise the budget, I want to start by reading a letter I got in my constituency office from a neighbour who lives on the road near me in Ballyfermot. It reads:

I went to my parents’ home at 9 p.m. tonight. My mam had the bottle gas fire right in front of her and my father had his housecoat on him and was in bed. I can’t stand back or stay quiet. My parents need urgent help. My dad is almost 73 years old. He has COPD. My mam is 66 years old. The house has no heating at all and the hot water takes hours as it is coming from an immersion, which costs a fortune. The boiler recently broke down and they haven’t got the money to have it repaired. My dad recently retired and the money that he has from a small pension puts him slightly over the right to the fuel allowance.

They want me to come to see them and I will be visiting this home either tonight or tomorrow night. I want to contrast that with the idea that, somehow, this is an amazing budget that is going to lift people out of poverty, that we are a great country of egalitarians and that this House sees everybody as being equal and treats them equally. Actually, we do not. This is the third wealthiest country on the planet and all the wealth is in the hands of a few. Although somebody on the other side of the House talks about sharing the wealth equally, we are far from it.

I want to go through some of the issues in the budget that I thought were worth raising. First, on an obvious point, having come out of the Covid period, when this country recognised that everybody needed at least €315 per week to survive, and everybody got that payment, the Covid payments were then removed and we are back down to the basic welfare payments. What do we get in the budget of this year, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis that we have never seen the like of before in the history of this State? We get a €12 rise in basic social protection payments, when €12 is not anywhere near the figure for inflation. What would be required to be inflation-proof is something like €25 per week on every social protection payment.

We recognise that the once-off payment measures have given people a bit of breathing space, and they have certainly given the Government a bit of breathing space. I would describe them as palliative. They will keep the pain away for the few months in the lead-up to the post-Christmas period but, after that, the energy hikes will continue, the food hikes in particular will continue, and people’s social protection payments and basic income will not see them through.

I particularly think this is true of people with disabilities, and many Deputies have referred to this. If we, as a State, believed that everybody needed minimum pay of €350 a week to live on, to survive and to keep them out of poverty, then that is particularly true of those with disability payments because of the extra needs they have in terms of getting over the everyday challenges they face. That needs to be looked at again and perhaps we need a mini-budget that would really address the need to improve the lot of people with disabilities. There is quite a high rate of people with disabilities in this country.

Other Deputies mentioned the exceptional needs payment. This will be part of the discussion with the family I am going to meet in the next day or two. In all of our experiences, we know the wait is way too long and the refusal rate is way too high. I have looked back at some parliamentary questions that Deputies around the House have asked about the exceptional needs payment in their own areas. The national figures are rising and rising. In April there were 6,500 applications for exceptional needs payment, in July that was 17,000, and I do not know what it is now. The average processing time is eight weeks, and it can be 12 weeks or more, as Deputy Funchion said. That has to change. If they are exceptional needs, then they are needed now, like the case of this couple who have a boiler that needs fixing. I got my own boiler fixed recently and it was €2,500 just to get it fixed and another €500 for the labour, but I have that because I am a Deputy and I am paid handsomely. However, if someone is living like that couple who live around the corner from me, then there is huge discrimination and huge challenges to be faced.

The other point to mention is this idea that the fuel allowance is all sorted. It is not. There are a number of exceptions to getting the fuel allowance that are going to stand in the way of many people. One is if somebody lives with a person who is not on a qualifying payment. I know of the case of a blind man on an island off the coast of Cork who came to me because he knows me from the past. Somebody who lives with him and helps him has been refused carer's allowance. Now, he has been refused fuel allowance for the first time because she is living there and she is not entitled to any payment from the State. She has no income and he has been cut off fuel allowance. None of these things make sense. We need to have a system where we look at individual cases and they are dealt with in a fair, compassionate and timely manner. There are other reasons someone would not be entitled to fuel allowance, for example, if a person is on jobseeker’s, enhanced illness, occupational illness, maternity or disablement benefit.

A person getting any of those payments is not entitled automatically to the fuel allowance. That creates a real barrier in the context of other rights people might have, such as to Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, grants. I have been contacted by dozens of workers who have retired with a tiny pension that may throw them €6, €5 or €3 over the limit and have been cut off from all benefits from the SEAI. That is shocking and needs to end.

I emphasise that we need social protection increases that keep track with inflation. Inflation has not gone away. It is predicted to be at least 7% next year. The situation is particularly bad when it comes to items such as food, which is something on which people who depend on social protection spend most of their income, and they do so in the here and now. Food inflation has gone crazy, particularly when it comes to basic items such as dairy products. I do not understand the inflation in the cost of dairy products, particularly in Ireland, which has the biggest dairy industry in the EU. Dairy inflation is at 26%. There is no explanation for that other than profiteering and price gouging. The same has happened with energy companies. I know the Cabinet is talking about bringing in a solidarity tax and a windfall energy tax, and it is not beyond time for that to happen, but there is still profiteering taking place while the poorest and most marginalised are struggling to survive.

The issues I have raised need to be considered. We need a system that is timely and compassionate and can deal with the hardest of cases in the hardest of winters in a long time as a result of the level of inflation and the various crises we are facing. That leaves aside the need to address the biggest crisis the State is facing, namely, the housing crisis. Many of the people in this cohort are facing the dual challenge of housing as well as poverty. The budget should not be eulogised by the Opposition, especially in a country that is so unequal and where there is clearly a big hollow between the very wealthy and the very poor.

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