Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

More than 20% of workers are still on low pay, and deprivation rates went up four percentage points after last year's budget. The Government had to follow this up with a mini-budget in February because they got it so wrong this time last year.

The Government would not need to spend so much today if they got things right then. Those who are most in need are still paying the price for below inflation social welfare increases last year. I remind everyone that there were no increases to child benefit or the living alone allowance last year. The €2.7 billion being allocated in another so-called once-off package is needed because the Government is too ideologically blinkered to make the structural changes needed to make our economy work better and to make it fairer.

Here we have the return our old friend the energy credit. This is the very definition of an untargeted payment. Yes, it is popular but it is also populist. It represents a questionable use of public money, especially from those who pretend to be prudent. Let us put this in some context. This year, the Government has spent €1.2 billion handing out €600 in free money to me and hundreds of thousands of others who do not need it. This figure of €1.2 billion is €100 million less than the Government plans to spend on increases to all welfare schemes next year. It is multiples of what the Government plans to spend on combating child poverty. This simply beggars belief. Labour's €3 billion package of cost-of-living measures targets the money where it is needed most. It would provide for a bonus in October, not just at Christmas, to those who need it most this year, not in January. It would allow for an immediate increase of €15 per month in pensions, carer's allowance and other payments. Our party leader, Deputy Ivana Bacik, has had an innovative idea for a €9 per month climate public transport ticket to relieve pressure on commuters and students and help our climate. We also suggest doubling of the rent credit to €1,000, not €750, immediately. Crucially, we would also provide an emergency €90 million empty homes fund to encourage people to bring homes back to help the almost 13,000 people who are living in desperate homelessness. Our ideas direct the money to where it is needed the most and now.

On every top-line economic and fiscal measurement, Ireland is doing well. Income tax and VAT receipts are up. The rate of employment is also up. The corporation tax figures speak for themselves. We have a surplus. Even when we strip away any so-called windfall corporation tax surpluses next year, we will still report a surplus. We are the envy of Europe on the revenue side but the poor relation in the context of economic equality, childcare, health and housing. For too many people, this budget will not change a thing. If you are poor today, you will be poor tomorrow. Based on what we know, you will be even poorer next year. Politics is about choices. The choices made in this budget, at a time of unprecedented plenty, simply do not pass the tests of social solidarity and fairness. Will it make the permanent changes needed to lift families children out of poverty? No, it will not. Will it truly reward work by using our taxes the way workers want them to be used to fund the care system that is the mark of a decent society? It will not. Will it deliver the step-change of housing our young people and the future competitiveness our economy so desperately need? The answer to that is also a big fat "No".

Labour's €11 billion costed package maps out an Ireland that would work for all, not just for those who earn more than €70,000 a year, those who own their own homes or for those for whom the cost of living crisis is something they only hear about on the news. In the context of work, care, housing and climate we need an Ireland that works for all.

Ireland's low-pay problem is chronic. One in five people is officially on low pay. Having served as Minister for Social Protection, the Taoiseach knows only too well that our welfare system has to do far too much heavy lifting to keep our working poor out of poverty. There is no dignity in our working poor or anybody who works for a living having to rely on cash transfers from the Department of Social Protection merely to exist or, rather, to subsist. That is why in our view, the national minimum wage must be increased by €2 per hour to €13.30 and not by €1.40. It is manifestly obvious that we would not have the kinds of national minimum wage increases we have experienced in the past few years if it were not the introduction by Labour of the Low Pay Commission. There is no way on this God's earth that Fine Gael, left to its own devices, would do that. We need to move more quickly to a real living wage, not the rebranded, watered-down version Government has in mind.

In its costed alternative budget, Labour has ring-fenced €1.3 billion for a new public service pay agreement. The talks have yet to commence, but this would allow for a cumulative increase of in the region of 5% next year for nurses, healthcare assistants, teachers, SNAs, gardaí, council workers and civil servants.

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