Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There is €25 billion of a surplus in the economy, with 140,000 people on the housing list, 14,000 to 15,000 people homeless and rising, 1 million people on waiting lists for health care and 700,000 people living below the poverty line. We can throw figures across the floor at each other but these are facts that the Tánaiste does not address. As a left-wing TD and a socialist, I came in here to try to address them, and that is why I talked about the headbanging exercise. The Government is not interested in ending inequality in this country. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are only interested in looking after the wealthy, the businessmen, the developers and those who gained millions of euro in profit by ripping off people in the cost-of-living crisis in this country. They have never challenged them. Yes, the Government will throw us all a few hundred euros towards electricity bills but it never challenges the profiteering and never challenges those who are milking it in this country. Hence the inequality.

It is not rocket science to say that if there is extreme wealth at the other end and extreme poverty at this end, there is a way of knitting the two together and ending poverty and inequality. That is to tax the wealth of the rich, take the money off them and stop being their favourite guys in the Dáil. Be the favourite guys of the ordinary people. That is why I say to the Members on this side of the House that we have a duty to stop propping up Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and create a real left alternative to run this country.

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