Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One-off payments are welcome, but it is not accompanied by a long-terms vision for supporting individuals, workers and families, those with disabilities and those who need protection from poverty. The initial reactions from those working with families and workers in poverty and struggling to meet the ever increasing cost of living are damning. Social Justice Ireland has said that the decision to allocate substantial resources to the wealthy rather than the poorest in our society at a time when inflation is eroding the value of existing income supports and driving up the cost of living is manifestly unjust. For example, landlords will receive €600 in 2024 in the form of a tax cut equivalent to the annual value of the €12 increase to the core social welfare payments. Social Justice Ireland said it is profoundly disappointed that Government decisions benefit the better off, while the poorest are falling further behind.

In our budget submission Sinn Féin allocated €1.6 billion to increase core weekly payments for pensioners, carers, people with disabilities and others who depend on social welfare for a wide range of reasons. The Government has allocated just €1.1 billion. That is half a billion euro less. We would have gone much further in tackling child poverty to ensure that parents got one parent family payment to the age of 12 instead of the existing age of seven, and jobseeker's transitional payment until the age of 15. We would have given fuel allowance to low-income families on working family payments, and increased qualifying child payment by €10 and €5 for over and under 12-year-olds respectively for 2024. The Government's proposals fall far short.

People on disability payments and carers are being neglected. Sinn Féin would have increased disability related payments by €20 and there is no increase in carer's support grants. Child benefit is still below 2008 levels. It is €140 now, and it was €166 then. It was cut by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Given the energy costs it is unacceptable that the core rate of fuel allowance was not increased at all. Sinn Féin would have increased it by €5 and ensured that families on low incomes would have got it by extending it to those in receipt of the worker family payment.

I will address a couple of issues concerning community development. Unfortunately there was a lost opportunity to help many communities, particularly those in disadvantaged communities, who are still reeling from the austerity years. I acknowledge that we are immensely proud of the communities that have warmly welcomed those who have come to this State to seek shelter or a new life. The reality is that it has put immense pressure on education, health, housing and in particular our community infrastructure. The additional €1 million is pretty paltry. I do not believe that the funding allocated is anywhere near sufficient to meet those needs. In fact, when I was looking over the budget, intently listening to it yesterday and reading over it again today I was almost struggling to figure out how I would fit two and a half minutes into any of the additional supports for our communities.

Last week I raised again the issue of workers in our community who are seeking pay restoration to support retention of workers. We met them in Leinster House today. We met them in the AV room, and they are going on strike next Tuesday because they believe the Government has let them down again and again. Why are these most dedicated people going on strike? They are people who have stuck it out since 2008 when the initial cuts were put in place. They have watched others in the public sector get their pay restoration. They have watched with envy as these workers rightly got their pay restoration and increments and the respect of the State. Yet, these workers who are doing exactly the same incredibly important work are being left to go on strike to seek their payments. It is ironic that if these services were to close in the morning, the State would have to take them over. The State would have to do it, and would have to pay people in the public service to do the work they are refusing to pay the people in section 39, section 56 and section 10 organisations.

I will also quickly talk about the community service programme. I met a project the other day, and people talked about the increase in the minimum wage and the community service programme. They told me how difficult it was for some of those projects to raise the payment they get from Pobal up to the minimum wage. Some can obviously afford to bring it up to living wage, and they do. We need to insert something in the community services programme, in the next couple of months, to make sure those who are getting the increase in the minimum wage are the ones who need that support now. They are struggling and they will struggle in coming months.

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