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

I do not wish to be ungracious, but this is not a time for standing ovations or self-congratulation. We are living in one of the richest countries in the world and yet, one in five of our population is living at risk of poverty. As we head into Christmas, there are 3,400 children who are going to go through Christmas in emergency accommodation. There are a total of 11,000 people who are homeless and in emergency accommodation, many of whom are children who will suffer their second, third or fourth Christmas in homeless accommodation. One in five of our population suffers deprivation. A whole generation of young people have no prospect of being able to afford the rents that are being charged or the house prices that have all reached record levels. This is happening not because it is necessary, but because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have protected the interests of the few over the many. At the same time that we are seeing that shocking level of homelessness, deprivation and people suffering the cruel blows of an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, corporate profits have soared through the roof. They are up 159% over the last decade. The ESB and the energy companies saw their profits treble in the first six months of this year. At the same time, there are people on pitiful incomes who do not know if they will have enough money to pay for electricity.

Yesterday, I got a message from a young woman in Wexford named Jill, who is a single parent with a child with special needs. In the last week she has had to put €200 into her pay-as-you-go electricity meter. When she rang up Electric Ireland to ask if someone would come out to check whether the meter was faulty, because she simply could not believe that this is what she was being charged when she has an income of €268, she was told someone would come out, but if there was no problem with the meter she would be charged a €200 call-out fee. Earlier this week I read out a letter from a mother who, along with her husband and her two teenage children, is facing the courts and the prospect of being evicted from the home where they have lived all their lives in February, even though the Government claimed it was going to prevent this stuff. They are people who have paid their taxes, have done nothing wrong and have always paid the rent. They, along with thousands of others, are going into this Christmas facing the prospect that they will be homeless in the new year. That is the legacy of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael - a society for the few while the many suffer homelessness, deprivation and struggle to survive day to day.

In our view, this is not a time to change the Taoiseach; it is the time to change Government. We need a different type of society where people are put before the profits and wealth of a tiny few. We need a government of the left, a socialist government that will use the wealth and resources that exist in our society to eliminate homelessness and to end the scandal of people waiting on trolleys and nearly 900,000 people waiting for essential procedures in our hospitals.

I say to our colleagues in the Opposition that if, as many of us are saying, it is time after more than 100 years to break the cycle of Fianna Fáil - they have had their chance and they have let us down - then they also need to give a pledge to the people out there that they will not prop up a Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael Government come the next election. It is time for a different type of Government in this country that puts the needs of working people for basic services, such as the right to housing and a secure dignified existence for everybody, first. That is perfectly possible in one of the wealthiest societies in the world but it will not happen unless we remove Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael from power.

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