Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Doherty for tabling this Private Members' motion.

Two reports have come out over the past month about the everyday reality for people in Ireland. One is from Barnardos, on food poverty in Ireland, and one is from Oxfam, on wealth inequality. They reveal two starkly different experiences of living in this country. Just two people in this country have nearly twice as much wealth as the bottom 50%.

Since 2020, the richest 1% of people have received 63% of new wealth generated, and the bottom 90% got just over 10%. This is while nearly one in three parents skipped one or more meal per week to make sure their children could eat properly, while the richest 1% of people got to hoard 27% of the country's wealth and the bottom 50% had to make do with 1.1% of the wealth. Working-class people are cutting back on food, heating and meals, all in order to make ends meet while the rich make millions off high rents and prices. The Government said a couple of weeks ago that it cannot afford to keep up all of the cost-of-living supports. How much longer can we afford to let the rich's wealth skyrocket year after year, while working-class people's lives get harder and harder? How much longer can we afford to let the rich get richer while everyone else struggles? The fact is that working-class people's lives are getting worse. This cost-of-living crisis is not going away. We are one of the richest countries in the world but we have nearly 600,000 people living in poverty, and this Government is contemplating taking away supports that hundreds of thousands of people desperately need.

The eviction ban ends on 1 April. If this happens, there will be a surge of tenants facing the prospect of losing their homes. There are 11,632 people already in emergency accommodation, and we know that is the tip of the iceberg. I am already seeing a significant increase in people coming into the constituency office after receiving upcoming notices to quit, which is eviction. We must extend the eviction ban. We saw on Monday that Daft.ie has said that rents have risen by 13.7% in the past year and, more importantly, available places have dropped by over 20%.

Groceries are up 15% in price, inflation is still at its highest in years and wages are not even nearly keeping up with any of that. People need assistance and they need more help than the current social welfare system offers them. People on social welfare, pensioners, people with disabilities, carers and lone parents need not just temporary supports and payments, but real increases in benefits to match inflation and get them back above water. There is a need for a €15 per hour minimum wage. We need proper, permanent and universal increases in social welfare to get people out of the trouble they are in. Social Justice Ireland and other organisations are consistently calling for a minimum of an extra €8 per week for social welfare recipients, just so people can catch up with this crisis. We know the 12% increase is a cut in real terms because there had not been an increase in 2021. For the last three years in a row, welfare income has fallen in real terms.

As has been said, community welfare officers need to be put back into the community, which is an issue I raised over a year ago. It is not good enough to have to sit on the end of a phone for ages waiting to get an appointment a couple weeks from now and then waiting a number of weeks for that welfare payment to come through. We need more community welfare officers, and they need to be in local health clinics where people can reach them, particularly in rural areas where people have to travel long distances to go into the Intreo office. We need the establishment of a specific cost-of-living fund so that community welfare officers can have real discretionary funding for people who need immediate support. Will the Government maintain the reduced VAT rate for gas and electricity after the end of February, along with the reduced rates of excise duty for petrol, diesel and home heating oil? Will it continue the ban on energy disconnections? We need proper targeted payments to those in need, real reliefs for fuel and everyday needs, and real caps on prices to stop the gouging we see in the shops and on the garage forecourts. This is not just about people struggling during the cost-of-living crisis; it is about people who were struggling before it and will struggle after it.

On mortgage rates, I met a woman this morning who has her mortgage with a vulture fund and she said her mortgage has gone up to €1,550 per month from €1,200 per month. She had to go in and negotiate to extend the length of her mortgage by five years to keep it at €1,200. These are the measures people are dealing with. This country is seeing a massive transfer of wealth from working-class people to the richest in society. We need to end that and we need to reverse it. Oxfam has called for a graduated wealth tax starting at 2%, which would provide an extra €8 billion for desperately needed supports and services for working-class families and communities. The Green Party would have supported that before so why is it not doing it now?

See this speech in context