Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It will be felt by the hundreds of thousands of people who are waiting to get a hospital appointment, by the children living in agony as they wait and wait for life-changing spinal procedures and by the older people and sick people being left on trolleys in overcrowded and unsafe hospital corridors. One would not think that we have a recruitment and retention crisis across the health service, spanning GPs, doctors, nurses, speech and language therapists and all forms of specialists. We have to ask ourselves where the funding is for an action plan to solve this. Where is it, gentlemen? Allocating €100 million for new measures is a drop in the ocean. It is no surprise to us that a senior Government source is quoted in the media today as saying that health was not a priority in this budget. That much is very obvious.

For our part, we proposed an investment of €1.3 billion, which would deliver 1,800 additional hospital beds over three years, expand theatre and diagnostics capacity, deliver more home care and expand training places for healthcare professionals. Now, that is a plan. That is what a plan looks like. This would help to ensure that people receive the right care in the right place and at the right time. The Government’s health budget demonstrates that the Government has thrown in the towel on solving the health crisis. It is bad for our health, bad for patients and bad for front-line workers. Their failure to invest means that the crisis in our health service will continue. Chronic waiting lists will continue. Overcrowding will continue. That is certainly the case for University Hospital Limerick, UHL, which has experienced the most serious overcrowding on record and where more people are being advised to stay away from its emergency department.

This failure extends into services for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It is cruelly ironic that the budget was introduced on World Mental Health Day because the allocation in this area is truly shameful. We have a mental health crisis. Young people, families and communities are crying out for services, resources and help. They were looking on yesterday hoping that this help would come from the Government. Yet, if there is any new mental health funding, it is buried in a paltry allocation of €7.5 million, which is spread across several sectors. So, what do the Members of the Government say to those young people and their parents who are suffering because child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, are on their knees and getting worse? What do they say to those who age out of the system at 18 years when they are still in need of treatment and care?

I would put it to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste if they were present that it is very dangerous for the Government to pay lip service to the area of mental health and not to deliver the funding and resources that are necessary to achieve the radical overhaul that is required. That is why Sinn Féin outlined that mental health services require an investment of more than €70 million next year. We need ambition and energy to deliver a world-class, modern, fit-for-purpose mental health system in Ireland. Treading water and skirting around the edges of the problem will not get the job done. Those who are living with mental health challenges will feel abandoned and very badly let down by the Government today.

I say to the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, who are in absentia, that a real sign of the lack of fairness that is hardwired into this budget is found in the area of disability. I think the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, raised this particular area. Since yesterday afternoon, we have heard countless voices of people living with disabilities and their families and carers. They have expressed a clear sense of abandonment and of being let down, forgotten and left out in the cold. Not enough has been done to protect people living with disabilities who are at risk of poverty. The allocation that was provided needed to go much further to deliver on the Government's own capacity review.

There is no guarantee that pay inequality will be addressed for workers in this sector, who are critical to the quality of life of those who are living with disabilities. Therefore, can people living with disabilities be given clarity? Will the cost-of-living package they got last year be delivered again this year? What is the actual funding for the provision of new services, or is there any? What action will the Government take to meet the demands of section 39 workers as services are now on the brink of strike action?

The cost-of-living crisis continues as workers and families are being hammered by soaring bills in every area. Instead of bringing down the cost of fuel, incredibly, the Government decided to increase the cost of petrol and diesel at the pumps last night. This will make it even more difficult for families to get out and about to work and school and go about the business of life. It will be especially hard for those who are living in rural towns and villages who cannot rely on public transport. It seems to me that for all their talk, the Government is hell-bent on penalising people. It never seems to stand back and realise that in order to make this just transition, it needs to enable and encourage people to make a change by providing them with options, such as better transport options. However, they keep beating the same drum. They keep following the same failed plan and they keep expecting different results. The Government is in a cul-de-sac that will not yield success or progress at the pace we need it.

I welcome the fact that Sinn Féin managed to move the Government on mortgage relief. It was certainly not easy. We had months and months of resistance from both the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, towards my colleague, Deputy Doherty. Yet, it beggars belief that the Government has managed to take a good proposal and make an absolute hames of it by excluding hundreds and thousands of homeowners who have seen big increases in their mortgage repayments.

Families are still forking out a fortune in childcare fees. The Government has proposed a cut of 25%. It is a great headline, but parents will be baffled by how it will not kick in until next September. That is almost a year away. Parents are under pressure with childcare costs today. It is a sly political sleight of hand that the Government has delivered. Parents cannot afford to wait another 11 months for the relief they so badly need.

The climate crisis is real and immediate and it demands visionary measures and plans from governments across the world. In our alternative budget, we have set out ambitious plans to ramp up investment in climate action significantly. The Government, for all its big talk, has come up with meagre allocations right across the board. We proposed a core capital increase four times larger than the increase allocated by the Government yesterday. Budget 2024 cements this Government's woeful lack of leadership and delivery on climate change. We proposed a radical overhaul of the national retrofit programme that would make the retrofitting of homes actually available to and affordable for ordinary households. In contrast, the Government has chosen to double down on a deep retrofit scheme that can only be accessed by those who happen to have thousands of euro at their disposal. It leaves out those who do not have that kind of money, who may be living in older and more energy-inefficient homes and who need all their income simply to make it to the end of the month. The Government's scheme is so lacking in basic common sense that it defies reason. It is almost as if the Government is trying to make climate action a luxury that only the well-off can afford.

I have said repeatedly, and we are all in agreement, that Ireland can achieve energy independence by harnessing our abundance of renewable energy resources, particularly wind energy on the west coast. Such an achievement would utterly transform our economy, create the green jobs of the future and ensure that Ireland becomes an international hub for clean energy. Where in the budget is the investment to make that vision a reality, to deliver a fit-for-purpose planning system that drives efficiency to get renewable energy projects off the ground, and to develop our ports and grid infrastructure to the levels needed to realise this opportunity? Again, there is no vision, no ambition and no pace.

When Deputy Varadkar returned to the office of An Taoiseach last December, he said that tackling child poverty would be one of his main priorities. The Ministers who wrote this budget must not have received that memo. There is little recognition in it that the cost of raising a child has skyrocketed, leaving many families at risk of poverty. The qualified child payment will be increased by only €4 per week, far below what the Children's Rights Alliance and many other organisations said was the minimum required. In addition, there is no increase for the core rate of child benefit. It is still below the 2008 rate, which was cut by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. No increase has been made since 2016. Families are under savage pressure and the core rate needs to be increased. I welcome the extension of child benefit to 18-year-olds in further education, but let us face it - much more is needed. It is not enough to talk about tackling child poverty. The Government has to act decisively to make a real difference. Promises made and promises broken only serve to compound the problem.

Last week, I raised with the Taoiseach the Government’s woeful handling of the nitrates derogation. The changes will place significant financial pressure on farmers who made an effort to implement measures to improve water quality only to have the rug pulled from under them. We still have not been told when the Taoiseach will meet the European Commissioner. I remind the House that the commitment made by the Taoiseach to farmers was that this meeting, when it happened, would be about maintaining the nitrates derogation in full in the here and now. It was not a commitment about some renewed effort for a future date. When I put this matter to the Taoiseach last week, he changed his position. In doing so, he broke his promise to farming organisations. Just like the agriculture measures in the budget, he is big on rhetoric but wholly inadequate in delivering for family farmers and the rural communities that depend on them.

On social media yesterday, the Government made a big play about the tax cuts it had delivered. Fine Gael went all out to convince working people that this was great for them. What the Government did not tell people was that its tax plan benefited those at the top far more than it did ordinary workers and families. The tax package delivered by the Government yesterday would benefit someone earning over €200,000 by more than €890 while someone earning €35,000 would benefit by just €320. Where is the fairness in that? When the Government says it is putting money back into people's pockets, it is ensuring that the most well-off are getting a bigger share of the pie once again. lf anything sums up the utter madness of the Government's tax measures, it is that this budget provided more for landlords than it did for renters. A nurse will now be taxed more than a landlord. I want someone to explain to me how that is fair and how it will encourage nurses to stay working in our health service. The absence of fairness and equality continues.

Budget 2024 is a budget straight out the playbook of parties wedded to failure. This Government, led by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, is jaded and out of ideas. It is so locked into the past that it is standing by and refusing to seize big opportunities for Ireland. Its lack of vision is off the charts. We recall that, when the policies of the previous Fianna Fáil Government pushed the State to financial and economic disaster, it was workers and families who picked up the tab. It was workers and families who carried the burden of Fine Gael-inflicted cuts and austerity in the years that followed. The mantra from those parties was that tough decisions had to be made. Somehow, it was always ordinary people who took the hit when those tough decisions were being implemented. The message from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil during those times was that people would have to wait for recovery to see the necessary improvements in housing, health and the provision of public services. Here we are at a time of record surpluses, yet the message is again to wait. Time and again, we hear it from Ministers. The Government tells us that the housing crisis cannot be fixed overnight when it has had more than a decade to do so. It repeatedly promises to end the scandal of overcrowded hospitals, yet it refuses to provide the essential resources and investment. Today, it has the money to make a difference, but it is still unable to get the job done.

The penny has dropped for more and more people. The bad choices made by governments in successive budgets are why an entire generation are locked out of opportunity, prosperity and homeownership. An entire generation are worse off than their parents. For generations, people rightly expected that if they got jobs and worked hard, they could get ahead and build happy and secure lives for themselves and their families. This expectation has been shredded by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments. Ordinary people wake up every morning and see that the Ireland shaped by these parties does not work for them.

It does not have to be this way, though. Our country is bursting with talent, ideas and energy. We have everything we need to renew the social contract and build a fairer and stronger Ireland. We need a new Government that will break the cycle of these stagnant budgets. The most prudent use of public finances - the most fiscally responsible thing to do now - is to invest in our country and public infrastructure in order to drive economic growth and back our people in taking Ireland to the next level. Ba cheart cáinaisnéis tithíochta a bheith ann. Ba cheart don Rialtas infheistíocht a mhéadú agus spriocanna chun tithíocht shóisialta agus tithíocht ar phraghas réasúnta a chur ar fáil a leagan amach. Faoi rialtas Shinn Féin, cuirfidh an cháinaisnéis tús leis an gclár tithíochta is mó dá bhfacamar riamh sa Stát.

The appetite for real change among ordinary people grows by the day and, despite the challenges we face, this appetite is fuelled by the hopeful belief that our best days are yet to come and that if we reach bravely for tomorrow and push beyond the boundaries of the past, there is no limit to our bright future. I want everyone who feels abandoned, let down and left behind by this budget to know that we in Sinn Féin see you, we hear you and we are working hard to change things for you.

This budget demonstrates again that it is in fact Government inertia, apathy and lethargy - that claustrophobic fixation with doing the same things over and over again - that presents the big threat to Ireland's future. Change is not only desirable; change is now essential. This budget shows once again that while change is beyond Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, change remains within the grasp of our people. It was this failed Government's fourth budget and ordinary workers and families simply cannot afford a fifth. The Government is out of touch, out of ideas and out of time. Sinn Féin is the party that wants to end the housing crisis and will end the housing crisis. We will fix housing. We will make housing affordable again. We will deliver for a generation that has been held back and has been denied its chance of a good life and a decent future by the stifling politics of parties that have passed power between them for over a century. We need a general election and a government for change that will put workers and families first, with nobody left out and nobody left behind. That is a vision of Ireland worth believing in, worth working for and worth achieving.

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