Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Since Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael went into government with each other, it has not been clear which party's ethos has been more influential. One thing was very clear yesterday, though. We saw the return of Bertienomics. Fianna Fáil's infamous economic policy approach is once again leading the way. What could go wrong? Bertie once famously said that the boom was getting boomier and that is very much the theme of this budget. It is a giveaway on steroids, with a multitude of one-off payments timed to hit people's pockets around the time we expect voters to go to the polls. It is not very subtle, but I guess that is kind of the point. After all, what is the point in trying to buy an election if nobody notices?

It is not like this has not been done before. Vote for us because we are giving you back a few euro of your own money is a tried and tested formula in this country. The major problem, not just for the coalition but for the country, is that it is a formula that has been proven to fail. We all know where eroding the tax base and relying on windfall taxes got us previously - bankrupt and with the IMF running the country. This is where the Bertie approach landed us. Seeing the standing ovation yesterday from the Government benches, it is clear the parties in government have forgotten that entirely. They are speeding ahead at full throttle to the destination of a general election and spraying cash around indiscriminately on route with a dizzying array of one-off payments. All these payments will certainly be very welcome, particularly in the run-up to Christmas, but one-off payments evaporate fast. What happens then? When prices continue to rise, when disabled people will still not be able to access essential services and owning a home will still be out of reach, what supports will be available to people? Very few because the coffers will have been drained in a matter of weeks in an attempt to buy an election. This approach to the allocation of State resources is reckless and a missed opportunity.

The Social Democrats would have used resources to invest in our public services that have been starved of resources for more than a decade. We would have invested in affordable housing, universal health care, free education, quality disability services and a public model of childcare.

This would reduce the cost of living and build a strong social safety net, a floor beneath which people cannot fall. Instead, two statistics tell the story of where the priorities of this Government lie. Last year, the number of children experiencing deprivation went up by 30,000 or 15%. That means the parents of 30,000 more children could not heat their home or buy them a warm coat. Shamefully, despite all of the money sloshing around this Government, one in five children in the country is now in that position. Meanwhile, the total amount of State resources allocated to energy credits for holiday homes is now approaching €100 million. Why are we giving nearly €100 million to the owners of holiday homes rather than children living in poverty? Can anyone on the Government benches answer that question? This Government talks a good game when it comes to tackling child poverty. The former Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, even set up a child poverty unit in his Department, vowing to eradicate it but as so often happens with this Government, the rhetoric did not match the reality and that commitment now lies in tatters.

When looking at this budget and examines the detail a common thread quickly emerges: the more you have, the more you get. That is clear from the tax package that disproportionately favours higher income earners and from the failure to target supports at those who are really struggling. Another example that, year after year, I just cannot get my head around is the €19.8 million to prop up the greyhound racing industry. Let us compare that with the €7.9 million for domestic violence initiatives. Let us consider that sum in the context of the shortage of refuge spaces in the country. Zero tolerance, is it?

If the Government really wanted to use its resources to help the most vulnerable, two things are necessary, namely targeting supports where they are needed and tackling low pay. The Government has increased core weekly social welfare rates by €12. That figure appears to have been plucked out of the sky because it sounds a bit better than a tenner but what is the rationale for the increase? What index is it benchmarked against? The Social Democrats believe that welfare rates should be linked to the minimum essential standard of living and not be at the whim of the Minister of the day. To help get there, we would increase rates by €25 per week this year. This would target critical support to pensioners, disabled people, lone parents and jobseekers, the people in our society who are most at risk of poverty. We would also have increased core supports in other ways, including an additional €30 weekly cost-of-disability payment, a nearly 30% increase in financial supports to the most vulnerable children, an increase in the fuel allowance from €33 to €40 per week, an extension of the fuel allowance to those in receipt of the working family payment and an €8 increase in the living alone allowance. All of these measures could, and would, make a difference. We would also have committed to introducing a living wage in 2026 and increased the minimum wage by €1.30 to €14 per hour this year to get there. This Government has not mentioned the living wage in a while. Maybe the Minister of State can clarify if this is another commitment that now lies in tatters.

I encourage everyone in this House and everyone watching to read a column by Ciara Reilly in the Irish Examiner. It is the best budget analysis they will read today. Ciara's daughter Doireann is autistic and has a significant intellectual disability. Despite this, she says her family has "zero expectation of receiving any therapeutic help from the public system, now or in the future. Budget 2025 did nothing to change that stark reality.". Instead, they will have to use whatever meagre financial support they get and put it towards the €5,000 annual cost of private occupational therapy for Doireann. Her family must also find money for speech and language therapy, dietician care and other therapies. Ciara describes this as "privatisation by stealth" and she is right. The Government has essentially waved a white flag and given up on providing these essential, critical services. There is virtually no help from the State when it comes to their provision and without them, Doireann would suffer and would not be able to reach her full potential. Can the Government see how this indiscriminate, giveaway budget is a slap in the face to these families? Let us think about the families who cannot afford to pay privately for these essential therapies. Their children go on lengthy waiting lists for an assessment of need. When they receive a diagnosis, they are finally told what supports their children need but none of them are available. The only thing they are guaranteed is a waiting list.

Disability services are supposed to be another priority area for this Government but where is the evidence of that? Appointing a Cabinet subcommittee to discuss the issue is easy but where are the new measures and the additional services? When will disabled people in this country have the services that they not only need but are entitled to as a right? The Taoiseach has said that special needs services are the biggest example of where siloed politics and siloed delivery of services have let children down. Well done to him for narrating the problem but I remind him that he has been sitting at the Cabinet table for nearly a decade. He also spent four years as Minister for Health when disability services were in that portfolio. Can he tell us what, if anything, he is doing about that silo that developed on his watch? Yesterday the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Donohoe, stood in this Chamber and spoke about the country having full employment with no acknowledgement of the fact that we have the highest rate of unemployment among disabled people in Europe. Nothing in this budget will change that. Back in April the Taoiseach promised that the Government would ratify the optional protocol of the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities this year. The Government is running out of time. Will that be another broken promise or is it actually going to happen?

The housing measures announced in this budget are best described as too little, too late. For years the Social Democrats have been saying that the 10% stamp duty on the bulk purchase of homes by vulture funds is too low but the Minister for housing refused to listen. Throughout all of its term, the Government remained firmly on the side of vultures. Yesterday, weeks out from an election, the Minister tried to pretend that the Government's allegiances had shifted. An increase in the stamp duty rate of 5% to 15% was announced, which is pathetic. I do not know why he even bothered. First-time buyers cannot and should not have to compete with billion dollar funds. That is why my colleague, Deputy Cian O'Callaghan, has been calling for years for a 100% tax, an effective ban, on vulture funds bulk-buying homes. If the Government had wanted to ban it, it would have done so. These half measures will not work. In fact, they are designed to fail. That was not the only disappointment. When I listened to the Minister yesterday referring to an increase in the vacancy tax, I thought that maybe finally it would act and would do something, but no. Incredibly, the Government has increased the vacancy tax from 0.5% to 0.7% of the value of a home. In all fairness, house price inflation is at nearly 10%. On what planet is a vacant homes tax of 0.7% a disincentive to sitting on an empty property or house, when prices are skyrocketing by 10%? Why even bother? It is a blatant attempt to pretend to take action on vacancy while protecting the status quo. All the while, approximately 100,000 homes are lying empty around the country and there are nearly 4,500 children living in homelessness. The vacant homes tax should be linked to house price inflation and be set at a minimum of 10%. The Government is clearly not serious about bringing vacant homes back into use.

Perhaps the biggest failure in the housing budget is the continued lack of ambition. The old targets that everyone knows are far too low remain in situ. The Government is ignoring the expert reports that demand increased supply. There are some who have criticised this budget for the absence of a big idea or any vision.

I am not sure I agree. I think there is one big idea, one vision, which runs through it and that is buying an election. With one-off payments galore between now and likely polling day, was there ever such a blatant and transparent attempt to try to buy votes? Where is the imagination? Where is the ambition? Where is the political courage to invest to improve this country for the better in the medium to long term? These record budget surpluses represented a unique opportunity to invest in public services to transform people's lives and the Government chose not to.

Having failed to make the structural reforms that are necessary to seriously improve people's lives in the long term, having failed to target resources to lift the most vulnerable out of poverty, having failed to reach any of its social or affordable housing targets any year it was in office, having failed to improve access to critical services for children with disabilities, having failed to transform our health service and fully implement Sláintecare, having failed to reach our climate targets and having failed to improve our critical infrastructure like energy and water, the Government is now resorting to splashing the cash around indiscriminately all in an effort to distract from the fact that all the crises we face in health, housing, disability and climate will remain once these one-off payments evaporate.

It goes to show that the Taoiseach can have all of the new energy in the world but without any new ideas we are simply going around in circles, repeating the mistakes that have been made in the past. All I can say is I hope people see through it.

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