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

Ahead of next Tuesday's budget, trade unionists, pensioners, students, people with disabilities, housing activists and many more will meet on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Parnell Square to march to Leinster House. They will be marching because they are being absolutely crucified with the cost-of-living crisis and the housing and accommodation crisis. Mortgage holders are paying thousands of euro extra in interest. Hundreds of thousands of householders are in arrears with their energy bills. Families are hammered with childcare costs. Renters are paying absolutely unaffordable rents, if they can even find a place to live. All this hardship and suffering is happening at a time when the Government has an unprecedented budget surplus, which is projected to be €16 billion next year, and the country is wealthier than it has ever been. According to the Central Bank, aggregate household wealth stands at over €1 trillion this year. Corporate profits have also nearly quadrupled in the last ten years.

Despite this, in advance of the budget the Government is playing down expectations, saying we cannot protect everybody against the cost-of-living hikes because it would cause inflation. I put it to the Tánaiste ahead of the budget that this is a false and dishonest narrative. First of all, it is not inflationary simply to maintain the value of people's income, it is not inflationary to keep people out of poverty and it is not inflationary to provide affordable housing. Second, the real problem the Government refuses to acknowledge is greedflation, that is, profiteering by the banks, the supermarket chains, the property developers and the corporate landlords. This is the problem. I will take just one example and ask the Tánaiste about it, namely, the inequality in the distribution of wealth. I mentioned that according to the Central Bank there is, for the first time, over €1 trillion in aggregate wealth in the country. The bank also helpfully set out the distribution of that wealth earlier this year. Does the Tánaiste know what it found? It found the richest 10% of people own 54% of all that wealth. This means 10% own €540 billion more than all the rest of society, the other 90%, combined. That is the truth. That is why the Government will not give people what they need to address the suffering, the hardship and the housing crisis. The Government is protecting a tiny few who have all the wealth and all the profits. Will the Government introduce a wealth tax in order to fund the affordable housing we need, address poverty-----

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