Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

I will be sharing time with my colleague Deputy Sherlock. The story of Ireland over the past decade has been a story of missed opportunities. There was a catastrophic failure to build the homes we need when we could and should have done. The Government is so crippled by caution and conservatism that we are only now, a decade into a unprecedented spell of uninterrupted growth, facing up to the chronic infrastructure deficits in transport, health, education and energy that put our economic model and our society at risk. I have said it before and I will say again: Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael combined are the single biggest threat to Ireland's economy, not Donald Trump and his tariffs. Together, they have delivered a budget of broken promises for workers and dreams that have come true for developers.

Ireland in 2025 is a country of contradictions - rich and poor, all at the same time. We have: record corporation tax takes, but also record numbers of children without homes; record numbers of people in work, with one in five of us on low pay; budget surpluses that are the envy of Europe, with poor public services and infrastructure that belies our status as a rich country; growing wealth at the top alongside shameful levels of child poverty; high food prices that just keep climbing; the second highest energy costs in the European Union; a housing supply and affordability crisis; rising rents; and regulation that fails citizens.

All of this has not happened by accident. It is the logical outcome of policies pursued by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil for a decade. It is a Government that has wasted a boom and is happy to throw money at problems that instead require novel thinking, imagination, courage and real reform.

There is a faint whiff of 2008 around the place. The Government can be fiscally responsible and investment focused, too, but Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil let their old ideology get in the way. Recent history shows us that the Government cannot keep cutting taxes and ramp up spending at the same time and expect a good outcome for our country. I am one of three survivors still in this House from the Government that marshalled Ireland back to economic growth. Another is the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and my colleague, Deputy Kelly. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, should know the risks. Nobody should want to be there again. We are duty bound to remind this Government.

We have to ponder some facts. Public spending has gone up by over half since 2019, with Covid-19 revealing dangerous gaps in our health service and welfare and employment model. In recent years, we have had dishonest budgets that were works of pure fiction, with Ministers trotting in here year after year seeking Dáil approval for billions of euro more in spending after the event. There are dizzying spending overruns that are now routine with less, not more, transparency on how budgets are put together. There was a summer economic statement that could have been written by a transition year work experience student in the Department of public expenditure. A medium-term framework was published a month ago with no departmental spending ceilings, and what is more, it is all being paid for by dipping into the well of unreliable windfall corporation taxes from a handful of firms while the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Chambers, go about hollowing out and narrowing the tax base ever more. This never ends well.

It is unprecedented that, as the Government presents next year's budget, we did not even know the composition of the capital budget for 2025. In no other country would a government get away with this. It is a direct undermining of the powers and responsibilities of Dáil Éireann under the Constitution. It is why Labour has proposed that the Dáil needs its own independent Estimates commissioners to keep the Government in check. The threadbare revised national development plan did not include capital Vote ceilings for 2025. A total of two Supplementary Estimates for housing have already added over €1.4 billion to the budget for social and affordable housing in 2025. It took analysis by the Labour Party of the gross capital allocation to uncover that over €500 million of capital spending still had not been allocated to spending Departments at this time of the year. This is not an insignificant matter and it is no way to do business.

The national development plan and the summer economic statement were predicated on a capital investment spending increase of €2 billion next year from a base of €17.1 billion to €19.1 billion. The White Paper published on Friday miraculously included a capital spending figure of €17.05 billion this year. However, following all the extra Estimates to date, nearly €500 million of capital spending remains unallocated and unaccounted for in 2025. We will have to go through a detailed expenditure report to figure out where €500 million extra will be allocated, but this is an extraordinary way to plan for investment and indicates a lack of credibility and transparency from the Government. There are no detailed answers on demographics and existing levels of service - the details we need to keep the show on the road - and nothing much on carryover costs. We also have no clarity on how equity invested in EirGrid, ESB and Uisce Éireann will be accounted for under European rules. It is simply listed as €5.5 billion of strategic capital investment in the White Paper. In short, we have a Government with a credibility problem. This is a dangerous game.

Our public services need investment. Labour has shown how we would pay for that extra investment by raising revenue from, for example, restoring the bank levy and setting out €500 million, not €200 million as the Government has announced today, and other measures targeting wealth and assets. Where we spend more, we will raise in taxes. We need some honesty in the debate over tax and how we develop our country and the services on which we all rely. That debate, honesty and courage are not to be found in this budget. This is a budget for burger barons and big builders. That is the long and the short of it. Budgets are about choices, and this Government has made its and we are going to have to live with it. It has chosen Ronald McDonald over Joe and Joan Murphy, and your man from Supermac's over the man who gets up early in the morning. The Hamburglar from the 1980s McDonald's ad is back in town swiping hundreds of millions of euro in his swag bag from PAYE workers, who will see their wages increases next year swallowed up because bands and credits will not move to take account of their modest pay increases. This will come as a real surprise to those who have read the Fine Gael manifesto and would have expected an increase in the top band of €2,000 per year. That was the promise. This pledge is now in tatters. This will take some explaining, especially set against this budget's abject failure to support families through a cost-of-living crisis that for all too many has now become permanent.

To be fair to the Government, it does not pretend that this year's offering is anything but modest. God knows, this Government has a lot to be modest about. Of course, things were very different this time last year. First and foremost, there was an election to be won. The election is over, but the crisis in households most certainly is not. For the people I represent, there is too much month left after the end of the money. The struggles are real. The temporary respite of one-off measures is now history. Families with children who were over €2,000 better off thanks to 2025's budget will feel the difference come January. This will bite. This is on the Government. There are no energy supports this time out. There are limited, if any, improvements in terms of childcare. There is a €500 increase in college fees. What kind of Orwellian statement did the Minister make earlier on trying to claim that this was a cut to fees? It is not. We are nowhere close to free GP care for all kids. I could go on.

This time last year, the Government chose to buy the general election, and with our own money. A wad of €2 billion in so-called one-offs is the most abused and misused term in Irish politics. Money was sprayed around and, by coincidence, was hitting bank accounts around polling day. Imagine that. It was all melting away like a snow on a ditch almost as soon as the votes were counted and feet under the Cabinet table again soon after Christmas. Mission accomplished; job done. About €23 million per Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TD elected was the bill for the biggest and most brazen batch of bribes in Irish electoral history. The thing is we can support families through this difficult time and be responsible at the same time. The reality is, with some small exceptions announced today, the Government has chosen not to.

Nowhere will the Government's refusal to deliver a cost-of-living package hurt more than for those who depend on the State for their income. The pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis exposed real inadequacies and gaps in our social protection, work and care systems. The temporary payments just papered over the cracks; that is all. The tide has gone out, and it is those citizens who are in most in need of help who are more vulnerable than ever. If a person is on a fixed income, how in God's name is an extra €10 a week going to help him or her make ends meet when the price of basics - the groceries and electricity bills – is getting out of hand?

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