Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Budget 2024 has spectacularly failed to provide relief to workers. Despite significant financial flexibility, the Government has neglected the concerns of working men and women throughout the country. The Government talks about this but it did not do anything meaningful with the USC. The cuts introduced offer limited relief to low income families while the decision to cut the universal social tax by 0.5% has done nothing to help workers. Our budget submission proposed the abolition of the USC, as the current Taoiseach promised in 2016. Has he any recollection of that or is he suffering from memory loss?

The ordinary workers of the country are feeling very hard done by. This has been described as a social welfare budget by many workers, which is what it was. Let us be honest. It has failed to encourage those in unemployment back into the workplace and many low income workers are now questioning the point of working at all. It is not worth the candle, as I said last night. I am the chairperson of a community employment scheme and we cannot get people to come onto our schemes. Something has to be looked at in this regard.

At a time of almost full employment, a person on jobseeker’s benefit will be €624 per annum better off after the budget, which is a meaningful amount, without taking into account special payments at Christmas, double bonuses and so on, while a worker on €25,000 will get just €252 per annum and someone on €40,000 will get just €342 per annum. The Government has to look at this. We have been saying this for years. It is inherently unfair to working people who have to go to work, and there are many other issues I will come to shortly.

While we acknowledge there is poverty for those on social welfare, and we must keep them out of that and try to support them as best we can, one has to wonder how industries will fare across the board from hospitality to the big high-tech industries, which cannot fill their jobs. There is a real feeling that workers are not rewarded for their efforts, which is very sad. Work is healthy, good, meaningful and rewarding, and it is good for families and communities as well. In the face of mounting inflation, the present cost of living crisis and heightened energy and carbon taxes, budget 2024 has regrettably fallen short for many ordinary workers, and that is a fact.

I turn now to agriculture, our primary industry. The Minister of State, Deputy Browne, is proud to represent one of the finest agricultural counties in the country. He knows the problems with beef and sheep, and although they might not know sheep so well in Wexford, he knows of the problems with corn and the fact our beet industry was sold out by a previous Fianna Fáil Minister. Agriculture merited seven or eight lines in an hour and a half of scripted speeches by the Ministers. The Taoiseach complained about leaks. With all of the costs for security outside here yesterday, which I think was way over the top - although I thank the gardaí for the job they do and we even had Commissioner Harris looking around, observing and seeing what was going on - there was not a protester in sight. I think we should have stayed at home and saved on all that security because we had the budget drip by drip for the past week - every single inch of it. Big Phil the enforcer - Phil Hogan - Deputy Browne’s one-time colleague, had to resign as a junior Minister because a page went out in error on a fax machine, and now we have the joke of briefing the media by every other Minister as to what they are going to do. What did they do? Sweet F - I will not say any more, but that is all. It is like a sift of snow that fell on the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath's constituency, near the sea in Ballycotton in Cork. With the first ray of sunlight, it would have gone off and disappeared, the same as the little things that came here, because he spread it so thinly across the whole area.

Agriculture is our prime industry, in particular beef and cattle. Teagasc figures suggest that only 27% of cattle farms and 26% of sheep farms are deemed economically viable. It is there to be seen. The Government tells us everything else that Teagasc does but it will not listen to that advice. Budget 2024 has failed to recognise the broader economic challenges confronting farmers. It offers no solutions to the urgent necessity of bolstering farm incomes and ensuring the viability of family farms.

There is no land commission and the Government will not deal with that. We have a situation in Tipperary where a conglomerate is buying up every piece of land that is available - tens of thousands of acres - and ordinary farmers are just pushed out of the way. That is not good for communities, farmers or anybody else, or for hurling fields. Agriculture is a prime industry and the Minister should be ashamed of himself treating it like that. You go with the Greens in demonising the farmers and telling us they are causing pollution and everything else. It is a lonely existence now because they are under attack.

On carbon tax, as I said, the Government claims to understand people yet it has this punitive carbon tax. I want to nail the lie, and it is a lie, that the carbon tax is going into retrofitting. People who want to retrofit houses are waiting 24 months and they then need €20,000 up-front, if they have it, and they might get back €25,000 - live horse and get grass. Féach ar na daoine aosta. It is unbelievable. This is combined with the fact households have to pay higher taxes and charges all round. To put up carbon tax last night was actually sinful. It is a punitive, cruel tax that affects people in rural Ireland more than anywhere else because they have to travel by car to work, school, play or church – to mass or meeting - because they have no other transport.

I will not even bother with housing because the Government has failed and there is no point talking about housing. The Government has lost its way. It is in a dark, deep fog. It has put billions into housing assistance payment, HAP, at this stage and there is nothing to show for it. They are failed policies. The definition of lunacy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I want to address the situation regarding any sense of fairness for carers and pensioners. In our budget submission, we asked for €30 but it is a miserly €12, the same as last year.

The Government knows that what it has done with PRSI and the minimum wage is going to add at least €1 to every cup of tea and a scone and every small plate of food for €8. That is the cost. The Government has let down hospitality with a bang. They are massive employers but the Government only pays lip service to them. It is increasing VAT at a time when small businesses, such as hairdressers, are closing by the day. They will get no life out of this budget.

There is so much flux and so much extra money in the coffers that the Government tells us about. I was sick of people talking for months about the amount of ballast the Government had for the budget but it neglected the people. They are waiting. Tá said ag fanacht libh. They are waiting in the long grass for you people. They are weary and tired of this Green-Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael conglomeration of a Government that is penalising ordinary people, that is putting people to the pin of their collar, that is driving people to despair. I will not even talk about the carry-on in health, which Deputy Michael Collins addressed. There is the waste that goes on across all Government Departments. You scrounged from ordinary people, giving with one hand and taking away with the other. It is a sad day and a sad outfit, with a party like the Minister of State's that was supposed to represent the ordinary daoine na hÉireann, the ordinary people. You have lost your way completely.

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