Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I know you are about to conclude this, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, but I was struck by Deputy McAuliffe's comment that the Bill keeps people where they are because that is exactly what is coming back from this budget - the sense of injustice. People know that, come next February and March, they will be in the very same position as they were before this. It certainly keeps them in their place, whether that be carers or young people looking for a house.

I listened with interest to all the talk about the need for people to have jobs. We talked earlier about choices. The choice that people from County Mayo, particularly north Mayo and the Erris region, where I am from, have faced on finishing college has been between living with their parents or going abroad for a place to live. The latter is what so many have done. You have only to look at the football teams in rural Ireland to see how many young people have been forced to go. The young people are our brightest and best. They are desperately needed in the likes of Mayo University Hospital, where they would find employment if that hospital were to implement safe staffing levels. The hospital has more than 80 positions vacant. We do not have the speech and language therapists or occupational therapists required, nor do we have staff across so many other disciplines. Young, educated people are forced to leave the country because they simply do not have a place to live. It is certainly a matter of keeping people where they are.

I am struck by the lack of awareness of what meeting the cost of living is like for people. If they get an extra payment, it is gone within minutes on paying arrears on energy bills, making mortgage repayments and paying high rent. Twice as much is taken out of one pocket as is put into another.

The sensible way to deal with taxation is, as Deputy Doherty said, to abolish the USC for people earning under €45,000 per year. That would have been the fair way to proceed. People would have more money in their pockets.

I heard the Deputy who said what their party would do in the next Government. I would not presume the Irish people will put back into government the same people who put them into their current position and told them they will remain in it. The implication is that the current Government has had only 13 years and needs another five, or a total of 18 years. It is absolutely ludicrous that the Government would deny, even at this late stage, what it has failed to do in the budget. It has no excuses this time; the excuses have run out.

We talked earlier about the Apple tax, which the Government spent €10 million trying not to get back. Its members are now falling over themselves promising what they will do with the tax, which was rightfully the Irish people’s tax in the first place. People can see through what is being done here. They can see through the short-termism of the budget and the absolute lack of vision regarding what we are considering this evening. The nation will not be bought by short-term gimmicks. I really would call them gimmicks. IFAC referred last year to the gimmickry going on in the economic sphere. There are certainly gimmicks in the budget but the Irish people will not be fooled by them.

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