Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

This was a good budget for those the Government represents. The landlords got a significant tax break. The corporate tax avoiders got an extension of their research and development tax credit, or tax break in reality, and the multimillionaire angel investors got a bespoke tax break. It was a bad budget for people with disabilities, for children and for those on hospital waiting lists.

I want to focus on a few specific measures that illustrate the character of this budget. The most striking is the €160 million tax break for landlords; twice what has been given to renters. The Nevin Economic Research Institute, NERI, has correctly said that the landlord tax break will go down as one of the worst tax initiatives ever. It is almost entirely a dead weight. In other words, the whole premise of the tax break is that it is necessary to keep the landlords in the market, but the vast majority of those who will benefit from this tax break would already have stayed in the market. It is €160 million that has been handed over to the landlords which could instead have been used to build houses to fundamentally address the question. The whole premise of the tax break is based on a lie. It is based on the idea of a flood of landlords out of the market when the CSO figures indicate that that is not happening and that from 2016 to 2022, the number of occupied dwellings rented from a private landlord increased by 7% to over 330,000. It is based on the idea that we have to make this dysfunctional market work and the only way to do that is to hand more and more money over to landlords, as opposed to recognising that the issue is people having a home. If people want to leave the market that is fine, no problem. The State should buy the house so the people get to stay in their house. They get security of tenure, the landlord gets to exit the market if they want and the State gets a very important asset for public housing.

The second issue is also in the area of housing. The budget report states: "Following on the investment in 2023 [which was €65 million], a total amount of €70 million is being provided for the remediation of homes affected by defects in 2024." The Government has agreed to an inadequate redress programme for homes affected by mica, which is estimated to have a cost of more than €2.7 billion. The Government has agreed to a redress scheme for those affected by defects in apartments and duplexes which is estimated to cost around €2.5 billion. That is over €5 billion that is necessary. I just do not understand where the money to make this happen is coming from. I asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. He said not to worry because the interim or emergency funding for apartment defects will be coming on stream before the end of the year. The figures indicate that the Government does not actually intend to pay out on these redress schemes next year because there is no money provided in the budget to do so. I want to hear from the Minister on this. People from the Not Our Fault campaign were outside today protesting in the rain and making the point that it has been 266 days since the Minister acknowledged the problems with apartments and defects and promised a redress scheme and yet the money has not been provided in this budget again.

I will conclude on the issue of healthcare. A senior Government source told The Journalthat health was not a priority in this budget. That is written all over the budget document. That is incredible. Almost 1 million people are on hospital waiting lists and there is no provision for any extra beds in our health service. That is just scandalous at a time when we are running a significant surplus. It is absolutely scandalous not to address the core issue behind the crisis in our health service. There is no significant mention - a couple of words about mental health but not the funding - of the €500 million we need to be invested in our mental health and no reference to funding trans healthcare appropriately. There is nothing there in terms of healthcare.

Yesterday, I raised the scandal relating to the delay in funding the cuts to the cost of childcare but foster carers have been treated even worse. After having no increase in payments since 2009, it was announced that there would be an increase but most of the increase is not going to happen until the end of next year. It is a scandal to announce that in a budget now and not to deliver.

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