Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

This is a cynical budget. It is a short-term budget that seeks to rebuild the fortunes of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green party, rather than rebuilding the State and its public services. It is a south Dublin budget that hurts many people living in regional and rural Ireland. I will address that last issue first. This Government speaks with measured tones, with deep sympathy, when it talks about people who are suffering from poverty and from the cost-of-living crisis, but at the same time it actually takes more in terms of taxes, excise and carbon taxes on fuel than ever before in the history of the State. We have a situation where the Government is actually taking with one hand in terms of high taxes on fuel and giving it back in so-called electricity credits. The Government is playing a three-card trick on people in terms of these costs. Excise on petrol and diesel increased in June, tolls increased in July, excise again increased in September and today carbon taxes increased. That is four price hikes for commuting families in four months, in the jaws of a cost-of-living crisis. That is not tea and sympathy, that is highway robbery for people commuting. I understand these taxes are in place to change people’s behaviours and to push people onto public transport. For much of this country commuters do not have a choice of public transport. Take my own county, County Meath, for example, which is the largest commuting county in the country. Most commuters do not have the option of taking a train. The bus service is a disaster. Services are dropped on a daily basis leaving people at the bus stops late for work. They have no alternative. Increasing the carbon tax today is not a behaviour-changing tax but a punitive tax and it is impoverishing families. Incredibly, this is an expansionary budget but it will actually reduce by 2% the funding going to the public services in real terms by 2026. This budget will do nothing about getting more gardai, doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers into the system. This is incredible because for the majority of the year this Dáil is consumed with the disaster happening in the public services. We talk about CAMHS, Tusla, and the health service where about a million people are waiting on the lists. Yet, on budget day we seem to forget all of these issues. There is little in this budget about workplace planning. We hear from Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC, and others that constraints within the economy are seriously damaging supply of products and causing inflation. However, the way to mitigate against constraints is to make sure we have the proper staff in place to deal with it. This budget should have included a serious plan to bring home Irish construction workers who emigrated in the past 15 years. There should have been a real plan in terms of educating more people for construction work, gardaí, doctors, nurses, teachers, psychiatrists and social workers and to keep them in the country.

This budget is also peppered with once-off lump sums which do very little to address the underlying causes of poverty in this country and by God there is poverty in Ireland at the moment. There are 650,000 people currently living in poverty, 280,000 people currently in arrears with electricity bills and 165,000 people currently in arrears with gas bills. Yet, all they are offered is a once-off payment which will make no systemic change to their incomes in the long run. Interestingly, this once-off policy platform is now shared with Sinn Féin. It seems as though they are continuing to flirt with Fianna Fáil, their coalition partner in waiting after the next election. Many of these tax reductions by the Government will do little to help low and middle income families. It seems Fine Gael won the debate on the USC so instead of reducing the lower rate of USC, the upper rate was reduced. What this means is that people on €70,000 a year will get a reduction of €235 in their tax bill but a person on €20,000 a year will get a reduction of €10 on a tax bill for the whole year.

The increase in the pension is lower than the rate of inflation so in real terms that is a net reduction in the income of pensioners. In a clear sign of the Government's priorities, nurses working overtime will pay more tax on their income than a landlord who earns the same amount of money from passive income on a house. It is an incredible situation for a country that is hammered for the lack of nurses. We also have a situation where banks are earning nearly €5 billion in profits but the Government decides to increase the banking levy by only just over €100 million.

Another theme in this budget is that the Government is promising funding for sectors that lack the staff to fulfil those promises. It is as though the Government is delivering a virtual reality budget for many people. The funding exists on paper but it does not exist in reality because it never gets delivered. The Government is looking to decrease the cost of childcare but at the same time actually decreases the number of childcare facilities in the country. The Government is talking about extending free school bus services but we are all dealing with kids who still cannot get a bus service and it is well over a month and a half since they went back to school. The Government is talking about increasing the number of children covered by the GP card but is almost impossible to get onto a GP list at the moment. The Government promises more teachers and gardaí but in actual fact teachers and gardaí cannot live in many parts of the greater Dublin area. Young people are shunning Templemore at the moment because Garda welfare and morale is on the floor. In a similar way, there is talk about more funding for businesses. Much was made of the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, when that was launched but, of the €650 million promised, only €180 million was drawn down. That is because when the Government provides funds for businesses it is made so damn awkward to draw down that very little of the money actually gets drawn down. In his speech, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, repeated, reused and recycled previous announcements. He announced measures that are already in place such as the hospital beds the Department had to delete from its X, formerly Twitter, account. The long-awaited announcement of a graduated social welfare plan for people who have been made redundant did not materialise in this budget.

It is to happen sometime in the future. That is of no benefit to workers in Tara Mines who lost their jobs months ago and who still have nothing to show for it.

Another announcement that was made today is for something that will actually come after the next budget. The statutory foster care rate increase will not happen until the end of 2024. Incredibly, the childcare cost reduction will not be happening until the end of 2024 as well. Can the Minister of State tell me if that says more about the timing of the general election or about the needs of the people the Government pretends to want to help? I agree 100% with Deputy Berry’s statement as well. This Government is in dereliction of its duty to defend and protect this country against the large amount of drugs that are coming in.

This Government does very little in the way of tackling waste, bureaucracy and red tape. Billions of euro in the budget every year are lost to those issues. The national children’s hospital is an example. The 3,500 empty local authority homes are an example. Waste causes inflation, it hurts citizens and it needs to stop.

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