Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have had an ongoing crisis for a long time in this country and it is one that has underpinned all other crises, that of inequality. Ireland is renowned for its wealth inequality and new data for 2022 show Ireland maintaining its status as the most unequal country in the EU by market income. The most recent EUROSTAT data show that Ireland's top 20% have about 15.5 times the income of the bottom 20%. High rates of income inequality and poverty have sadly become the norm in Irish society. This is an issue that affects the entire county. Recent Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures, for example, show earnings in my constituency of Donegal are still the lowest in the country.

It is time that we finally addressed this. However, addressing it is far from simple because all aspects of Irish life, from employment and healthcare to accommodation and education are rife with inequality. The capitalist system under which we live promotes greed, selfishness and the production of social harms such as income inequality, which then results in significant social divides. It is no wonder we are seeing an incredibly fragmented and divided society of late. The root cause of these social divides, the rise of the far right and the unrest we are seeing among communities, is most definitely inequality. Homelessness figures have reached over 12,000 for the first time in our State’s history, while over 166,000 houses in Ireland are vacant, 62,000 houses are second homes and over 15,000 entire homes or apartments in Ireland are listed on Airbnb. This is quite clearly an issue of inequality and it is time for the Government to acknowledge this.

People deserve to live a life with dignity. They deserve to have a roof over their head and food on the table. We have the resources and the wealth to provide that for every single person who lives here and every single person who comes to live here seeking a better life, but the Government chooses not to provide it. Why? Is it ideology? An estimated 13.1% of people in Ireland are living in poverty, of whom over 188,000 are children. If we do not tackle this now, these divisions will persist and most likely widen for future generations. Is this the legacy the Taoiseach wants to leave? I ask him to become more open minded in the way he addresses inequality. Just because we have had the same societal and economic systems in place for years does not make them better or right. We need to look beyond systems that have so obviously failed us and strive for a better way of living for everyone in our society. Tackling inequality properly requires a complete overhaul of these systems but there are also steps we can take in the meantime. Future Government policy must prioritise those at the bottom of the income distribution chain. I support Social Justice Ireland’s call for the Government to increase social welfare payments, ensure equity of social welfare rates and adequate payments for children and to provide a universal State pension, a cost-of-disability payment and decent rates of pay for low-paid workers. What will the Taoiseach do to address inequality in this country and stop the increasing social divide that ongoing failure of Government policy has caused?

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