Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)

Indeed, Fianna Fáil Members are missing in their entirety. I wonder why they have gone into hiding.

Budgets are about choices and the choices made by this Government in this budget could not be any clearer. Look after large corporations and developers at the expense of ordinary people and those who are struggling. There is no hiding or disguising it and no way to spin it. This Government’s choice is clear.

This has turned out to be a McBudget, a giveaway for fast food chains and developers that the public will find difficult to swallow. The Government's budget awards multinational companies like McDonald's and Starbucks millions in extra profits while families choosing between eating and heating are denied targeted energy credits and more and more children sink further into poverty. lt really is outrageous. Last year, McDonald's Ireland made a profit of €42 million. This is not a business that is struggling but that does not matter to the Government. Slashing its VAT bill by 4.5% boosts its profits by millions and all of that money will go into the pockets of shareholders and wealthy investors. It will not lead to lower prices. There are some small, independent hospitality businesses that are struggling. The Social Democrats proposed targeted supports for these businesses but a blanket VAT cut across the sector means large profitable chains will disproportionately benefit, raking in huge sums because the Government is cutting their taxes.

It is not often I agree with Fianna Fáil TDs on Government budgets but then again, members of the Government do not usually appear on TV to slam the budget either. Last night, on Virgin Media, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, said slashing the VAT rate for hospitality was "not what I would do if I were Minister for Finance”. Even Government Ministers are unwilling to defend this giveaway for big business, paid for by ordinary workers.

At a time when the Government has the gall to lecture the rest of us about protecting the national finances, in this budget it is eroding the tax take by €1.3 billion, a massive amount of public money that could be used in so many other ways, not least to introduce a second tier of child benefit that would lift 40,000 children out of poverty. Faced with the choice of tackling child poverty or dramatically boosting the profits of large corporations, this Government did not waver. It came down on the side of big business without hesitation.

They are not the only vested interests this Government is looking after. Fianna Fáil has long been a champion of tax cuts for developers and we all know the disastrous results of that obsession. Now, Fine Gael is on board, too. For the first time since the crash, tax cuts for developers are back on the agenda. VAT for developers of apartments is being slashed at a cost of €390 million a year, with no guarantee or even expectation that prices will come down because there are no affordability conditions attached to this gift.

No one in government is demanding prices come down or rents become more affordable. Instead, it is being done with one express purpose: boosting developer profits. This is further evidence that this Government is not on the side of struggling renters or those desperate to own a home of their own. At the same time, Government TDs intend to vote against the Social Democrats' Developer Profits Transparency Bill 2023 this evening. This Bill would clearly show how much of these tax cuts are going directly into the back pockets of developers. When millions of euro of public money is being gifted to developers there is absolutely no justification whatsoever to oppose this Bill.

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