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

The cost-of-living crisis did not end once the election was over last year. A recent report from Barnardos found that four out of ten parents skip meals or eat less to stop their children going hungry. This Government has forgotten about these families. This is a giveaway budget for property developers and owners of fast food chains. There are handouts for millionaires while ordinary families struggle to get by. This is outrageously unjust.

We should not be surprised that Fianna Fáil is focused on looking after its buddies while failing to help those who need it most. It smacks of the time when Charlie Haughey told the nation to tighten the belt while he continued to live his lavish and opulent lifestyle. This double standard is part of the Fianna Fáil DNA.

Government spending has soared from €70 billion in 2020 to €116.8 billion now, but what do we have to show for it? A worsening housing disaster, threadbare disability services, antiquated infrastructure and rising poverty. That is the Government’s legacy and this budget doubles down on this failure.

Anyone examining this budget would think the cost-of-living crisis was being felt most acutely by developers and the owners of fast food chains. They are the ones being singled out for special treatment. They are the ones getting a helping hand from this Government. When it comes to assisting workers and families struggling to keep their heads above water, this budget offers nothing. The Government says inflation has reduced, implying the cost-of-living crisis has receded, but there is no recognition that prices remain sky high and rising, especially for basics like groceries and energy.

So many out there, trying to feed children or keep the lights on, feel like they are enduring a daily battle.

They are weary and exhausted and when they look around for support from the Government, they find none. A major problem is that the Government seems incapable of devising solutions which do not involve spraying money around at everyone indiscriminately, which is not sustainable. This is why the Government opted to scrap blanket energy credits, instead of doing what it should have done in the first place, adapting them so they are targeted at those who need them most. Under the Social Democrats' alternative budget, roughly 800,000 households would receive a €400 energy credit.

Many public services that are free or heavily subsidised in other countries are exorbitantly priced here. Childcare is just one example. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil made solemn commitments to families about the cost of childcare during the election. They promised to cap fees at €200 per month. This would be life-changing for many families who are paying €1,000 per month and even higher, but nobody in government has mentioned that cap in a while and this budget does nothing to reduce prices, which is another broken promise. If the Social Democrats were in government, we would live up to our commitments and reduce fees by €200 next year, as well as rolling out a public model to increase capacity.

One of the biggest betrayals by this Government is its decision to jack up college fees despite vowing throughout the election and in the programme for Government to cut them. Worse than that is the Government's attempt to spin this. It expects students and families who paid €2,000 last year to believe that fees of €2,500 are a reduction. Why can it not just be straight and admit what it is doing, reneging on yet another commitment and increasing fees for students and their families at a time when they are under huge pressure? It is shameful. If this Government was really interested in reducing the cost of living, it would prioritise investment in public services like education, high-quality housing, healthcare and childcare.

Can the Minister of State imagine how a parent feels to see his or her own child grow up in poverty while the country is awash with money? Ann, a mother from the south east, told The Journal, "my husband and I often skip meals so our children can eat... Even child benefit, which we once used for extras for the children, now goes straight into the weekly food shop." This budget utterly fails to address the astonishing fact that nearly 200,000 children are living in poverty. It is important that we never forget the stress and hardship that poverty can cause a family.

There is a way to tackle this scandal head-on. The ESRI has proposed a second tier of child benefit that could lift 40,000 children out of poverty and significantly reduce the gap between the poverty line for most others. The Government has spent years talking about tackling child poverty but budget 2026 has yet again shown this just to be talk, not action. The ESRI introduced its proposal for second tier of child benefit in 2023, giving the Government ample time to act. Its absence from the budget shows up where this Government's priorities lie.

We know that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have utterly failed to get to grips with the housing crisis. This failure has devastating consequences. I want to tell the Minister of State about a constituent of mine named Arash. Arash and his family have been in emergency accommodation for over eight months. The children in the family must travel 21 km to school each day and they have no direct transport links. Arash has tried everything humanly possible to get his family a stable home, but to no avail.

Arash is just one of the more than 16,000 people stuck in homeless accommodation, which is an unprecedented disaster. In an hour and a half of speeches by the two senior Ministers today, there was no mention or recognition of homelessness at all. That speaks volumes. In this budget, there is a complete absence of the kind of vision and ambition that we need in housing.

The Social Democrats are clear that only a radical shift to a State-led approach will solve the crisis. The Social Democrats' alternative budget proposes fully costed and ambitious initiatives, including a €150 million fund to give the local authorities the resources to CPO vacant homes, increasing the vacant homes tax to bring empty buildings back into use, setting up a savings scheme to leverage some of the €160 billion on deposit in Irish banks to build affordable homes, establishing a State construction company, and investing €120 million to build a modular home factory which could produce up to 2,000 homes every year. Regrettably, these proposals have been ignored. Instead, the Government doubled down on its failed policy of handouts for private developers and tax cuts for investment funds.

Prolonged vacancy and derelictions of homes cannot be tolerated in the middle of a housing crisis. Refurbishing these homes is a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly way to bring these buildings back into use, yet the Government has chosen to leave the vacant homes tax at a measly 0.7%. At the same time, property prices increased by 7.5% in the past year. If the new derelict property tax can be set at 7%, why has there been no increase in the vacant homes tax? Under this Government, it pays to sit on a vacant property in the middle of a housing crisis. The Social Democrats would put a stop to this.

The Government's approach to the carer's allowance reflects a similar lack of compassion. Carers play an essential role in society, providing care for elderly, ill or disabled family members. Their hard work saves the State billions and allows their loved ones to remain in their homes or communities. Make no mistake that this is work and all carers should be paid properly. The means testing of carer's allowance based on income thresholds is unjust. Louise Mac an Tsaoi is a full time carer for her son, Liam. She recently told theIrish Farmers' Journalof her experience of the means test. She said:

My husband Sean passed away four years ago which meant my Carer's Allowance was halved as I went on to the Lone Parent Allowance, both of which were means tested... We have had to rely on a fundraising effort by family, friends and the community because I couldn't get a loan because my income is so low... [P]eople like me shouldn't have to jump through hoops for a bit of financial security when we are saving the country so much by caring for our children at home.

The last thing carers need is the State rummaging through their personal details to decide if they deserve any payment for their hard work. The Government could and should abolish the means test for carers now. Irish banks are making record profits but still not contributing any corporation tax. It is therefore completely justified to triple the bank levy to fund the abolition of the means test for carers. Budget 2026 was a chance for the Government to deliver on its election commitment to carers by creating a system that treats them with fairness, dignity and respect. Unfortunately, it is another missed opportunity.

The Disability Federation of Ireland has described this budget as a betrayal of disabled people, stripping away vital supports and deepening poverty. It has estimated that disabled people stand to lose up to €1,400 because of the actions of this Government taken today. It is now nearly four years since the Government published the Indecon report on the cost of disability. That report estimated that the average annual cost of disability in Ireland ranges from €9,482 a year to €11,734 for a disabled person. The Social Democrats have backed the calls for a proposed weekly cost of disability payment, recognising that those with disabilities face extra costs, particularly in transport and healthcare. Disabled people should not be financially punished because they have a disability. This budget ensures that disabled people are left behind for yet another year.

We also believe that this budget could have introduced more significant pension and social welfare increases. Pensioners, disabled people and other welfare recipients have struggled to keep their heads above water as inflation soared. That is why the Social Democrats' alternative budget proposed an increase of €15. A €15 increase would start to close the gap between welfare rates and the minimum amount needed to achieve a decent standard of living. Hundreds of thousands of people live week to week on incomes that are not sufficient to live a dignified life.

Workers were promised a living wage by 2026 but where is that commitment now? If the Government wants to make a genuine effort to reach that target, we need a more substantial minimum wage increase than the 65 cent announced. It is not a radical idea that people working full-time should be able to live and not just survive.

High-quality early childhood education has a long-lasting and positive impact on children's outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged children.

This includes benefits to educational, cognitive, behavioural and social outcomes in both the short and long term. We in the Social Democrats have set out a clear pathway to establish a public model of early childhood education and care. A public model of childcare would have the triple benefit of guaranteeing quality early years education for children, affordability for parents and decent pay for workers. We would then be able to keep skilled workers in the sector. The Social Democrats alternative budget contains measures that would start us on the road to this public model. These include capital investment in the infrastructure needed, including acquiring existing and new sites, reducing average childcare fees by more than €200 per month and a move to transfer staff in the sector into a public model.

We are in a climate crisis, yet somehow Ireland is now producing less offshore wind energy than it did 20 years ago. That is an astonishing fact. With a bit of ambition, it would be possible not only to secure our own energy supply but also make Ireland a net exporter of clean, green energy. For the past five years, the Social Democrats have proposed using budget surpluses to invest in transforming Ireland's economy to make us carbon neutral. By fully harnessing our renewable energy resources, Ireland could enjoy both energy independence and sustained economic growth - cleaner air, cheaper bills, and less money wasted on EU fines. Once again, the budget is totally devoid of ambition in this area.

Ireland should be a republic in which every child and young person has the opportunity to achieve his or her potential. This can only happen if everybody, regardless of background, is able to participate fully in education. Investing in education creates a better life for each student but also acts as an investment in our economic future. The best place to start is by making primary and secondary schools genuinely free. Successive Oireachtas education committee reports have also raised concerns about the absence of specialist counsellors and therapists in all primary and secondary schools. The Social Democrats alternative budget ring-fenced funding for these supports in all of these schools.

As things stand, there are far too many who cannot access our health service when they need to. There are too many people on lengthy waiting lists for treatment. There are too few primary care centres working in our communities. The scandal of people languishing on trolleys persists. Critical programmes, like the cancer strategy, have been starved of funding and regional disparities continue in the availability of acute care. Unfortunately, I heard nothing from the Ministers to suggest that any of this will change. It should not be too much to expect a decent standard of healthcare, yet the sad reality is that we cannot fully depend on our public health system, and large parts of it have been broken for some time. The Sláintecare plan to create a single-tier universal healthcare system has been progressing at a glacial pace. No updated costings have been published in the last year. There is no ring-fenced budget for reform, and the Sláintecare 2025+ plan was published without any money pledged for implementation. The Social Democrats are calling on the Government to urgently lay out a five-year funding programme for Sláintecare. This must be included in the pre-committed element of the annual budget process.

Ireland's economy faces unprecedented risks and challenges. It is essential that we do everything in our power to protect our prosperity. Foreign direct investment is, and will continue to be, an important part of Ireland’s industrial strategy. Multinational companies provide highly paid employment and contribute a disproportionately high share of our taxes. However, we cannot continue to rely on a handful of companies to fund so much of our tax base. To complement our multinational sector, Ireland needs to build up a thriving dynamic indigenous sector. We must provide greater supports for new innovation and Irish startups. This will be key to driving job creation, productivity and growth.

Ireland's investment in research and development lags behind our European neighbours. It is essential that we catch up. Too much of Ireland’s investment in research and development is based around tax breaks for large multinational firms. The Government’s own economic evaluation service has criticised the refundable element of the research and development credit as having significant amounts of dead weight. This has wasted billions of euro over the years. Government investment should instead include a strong focus on direct spending at Ireland’s traditional and technological universities. University-based investment would ensure the resulting innovations would be available for wider use and not confined to one firm.

It is also essential that Ireland become an attractive and affordable place to both live and do business. This means improving our social infrastructure, particularly housing, health, childcare and education, while also investing in our economic infrastructure, particularly the grid, transport and our ports.

When it comes to investment in our public services and infrastructure, Ireland is lagging behind. We need urgent and substantial investment. We face a myriad of challenges such as an ageing population, infrastructural deficits and climate change. It is simply not possible to invest in our future while eroding the tax base. The Fiscal Advisory Council, the ESRI, the Nevin Institute and the Commission on Taxation and Welfare all have the same clear message, namely, our tax base is too narrow and needs to be broadened. Just ten companies account for the majority of our corporation tax income. Our corporation tax dependence is reminiscent of 2008 when Fianna Fáil crashed the economy. An overreliance on property transaction taxes at that time left a gaping hole in the public finances when the property bubble burst. This Government is playing fast and loose with the country’s finances, and this could have devastating consequences. The Social Democrats alternative budget includes a range of proposals to broaden the tax base. Instead, the Government has narrowed the tax take by €1.3 billion. This is reckless and irresponsible.

Decent public services are a key foundation to a successful economy and society. Privatisation by stealth is undermining public services. It is also hugely costly. Outsourcing of services makes the co-ordination of those public services more difficult and results in their increased commodification. It weakens the public sector, reducing the skills and the staffing levels available to provide high-quality services. This amounts to little more than wealth extraction, making a small number of people very rich from taxpayers’ money. There are countless examples of this. We see this in our childcare system, which delivers neither affordability for parents nor good conditions for staff. Our housing system is characterised by profiteering. This comes at the financial expense of taxpayers and the social expense of the most vulnerable. We can see this when private developers build on public land and profit from it, when private landlords are paid billions of euro in rental subsidies, when private operators of emergency accommodation get rich while children grow up in totally unsuitable accommodation, and when local authorities enter into long-term leases with investment funds. Everywhere one looks, one sees the waste of taxpayers’ money on a Government ideology that says the market is always king. It is time to bring these services back into public provision.

The State must provide a social floor below which no-one can fall. This should involve fully implementing Sláintecare - a single-tier, free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare system - building a public model of childcare, building a sustainable home care service and ending the current postcode lottery, more direct State involvement in the building of affordable homes for rent and purchase, and ending lucrative long-term leasing deals for social housing provision. Expanding the State’s capacity is the only viable solution.

This budget will be remembered as one of bad choices and missed opportunities. The Government had a chance to take radical action to improve the lives of those who were struggling. It could have lifted 40,000 children out of poverty. It could have targeted energy credits at roughly 800,000 households who needed them most. It could have abolished the means test for carers and reduced the cost of childcare for families while rolling out a public model. It could have introduced a weekly cost of disability payment and turbocharged the delivery of affordable homes. Instead, the Government chose to side with vested interests. Instead of broadening the tax base, it has eroded it with giveaways and tax breaks for multimillion euro companies and developers, all done under the guise of fiscal responsibility by a Government trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes and make fools of them. I have news for the Government, though. No one is buying it. This budget represents the Government reverting to type. It is prioritising the corrosive politics of the golden circle. It has given up on the people struggling to keep food on the table and instead just announced one big giveaway for vested interests. It is just the latest shameful chapter in this Government’s legacy of failure.

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