Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have caused the housing crisis and today's budget is further confirmation that they are not the ones to fix it. We needed a budget for renters; instead we got a budget for landlords. A Sinn Féin Government would have introduced a budget that would have got to grips with the housing crisis and built the homes our people so desperately need.

Access to healthcare is one of the most fundamental needs of any citizen - knowing your child will be able to receive critical surgeries or mental health services when and if they need it and having confidence that a loved one will be treated with dignity. That is not the Ireland we live in today. Instead we have an Ireland where young and old are waiting hours upon hours to be admitted to our hospitals and emergency departments, an Ireland where many of them are consigned to trolleys on the hospital corridor. It is an Ireland where our children are forced to wait years for critical spinal surgery with devastating consequences, an Ireland where a child was forced to wait for five years, in which time her spine contorted by more than 90 degrees, leaving her in pain and sometimes unable to breathe.

Any modern society will be judged on its ability to deliver on these most basic needs. Has there ever been a point in the history of the State when a Minister celebrated billions of additional euro in the State's coffers when so many children were condemned to homelessness or forced to wait years for critical surgery? Is that the society we want to build? Today's budget offers no more hope to these children than they had yesterday. It has failed them again. A budget is about setting out a path for the future. It is about setting a vision of our values, a vision and values that are about compassion, dignity and respect. This Government and this budget need to be judged on that basis, and on that basis they have clearly failed.

Ba cheart do cháinaisnéis a bheith ann a thabharfaidh aghaidh ar an ngéarchéim thithíochta, ach inniu theip ar an dá Aire. Ba iad Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael ba chúis leis an ngéarchéim thithíochta agus tá a fhios againn uilig nach iadsan atá ábalta an ghéarchéim seo a réiteach. Tá muid inár gcónaí in Éirinn inniu ina bhfuil othair os cionn 75 bliain d'aois ag fanacht suas le 14 uair an chloig inár n-ospidéil ag iarraidh fáil isteach i leapacha agus iad ag fanacht sna ranna éigeandála.

The housing crisis is the Government's greatest failure and ending the housing crisis is Sinn Féin's number one priority. Delivering the biggest public housing programme in the history of the State is Sinn Féin's number one priority and it needed to be the number one priority of this budget, but under this Government, entire generations have been locked out of homeownership. More than two thirds of our young people are forced to live with their parents and more of them are reaching the conclusion that their future is not here but elsewhere. Homeownership is falling under this Government. House prices are rising, rents are spiralling out of control and the level of homelessness has broken all new records month after month.

What an indictment on this Government, which has billions of euro at its disposal, that nearly 4,000 children woke up this morning in emergency accommodation. Can any one of us here really imagine what that is like? Imagine a child not being able to invite a playmate over to their home because their home is a hotel room or a bed and breakfast. Imagine what it is like for a parent wondering what they have done wrong that they are raising their children in these conditions. They have done nothing wrong. It is the Government that has wronged them and shame on it for not changing course and setting a path to make things right in this budget.

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