Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)

It just came out this morning. The PBO tells us that child poverty will increase next year as a result of the budget measures.

The Tánaiste said that we should look at the Government's documents. I have looked at this document. We see middle-income households are also hit. The guide provided at the back of the tax policy change document shows this. It shows the changes for different income levels and family types, but there is a deliberate omission: there is no reference to couples with two incomes. Why? It is because they will be worse off after this budget. The inadequacy of measures would be starkly evident if they were included. The Government has left out dual-income households in a number of senses, and middle-income households, too. Why? They have been left out of the giveaway and left out in the cold.

The Government boasts a budget that contains targeted permanent measures. They are targeted, all right. There are giveaways for developers and large restaurant chains, but it is disappointing for so many others, including students who face a €500 fee increase; parents who see no reduction in childcare costs; families who are getting no help in addressing the cost-of-living crisis; and renters for whom there is no radical reset to increase the supply of homes. Indeed, it seems the Government has given up on people without a home. The height of the ambition in this is capped at investing more in hostel accommodation, not on ending the housing disaster. You know it is a bad budget when the Minister is forced to boast about retaining the Christmas bonus.

There are welcome measures. We acknowledge that. We welcome the expansion of the living city initiative, which we have fought for, and the announcement of a new derelict property tax, but the timelines for both are so long out that we may never see them take effect. We welcome the increase in the minimum wage but where is the pathway to a living wage? We welcome the income disregard increase for carers, which is something that Deputy Mark Wall and the rest of us in the Labour Party have pushed for for years, but where are the meaningful changes for disabled persons and carers? We welcome the move to make permanent the basic income scheme for artists, but this was a Green Party initiative of the previous Government accompanied, let us not forget, by an overall cut in spending on culture and the arts. We welcome the allocation for the football academy, but our Aodhán Ó Ríordáin deserves a lot of the credit for getting the ball rolling on that.

I take issue with the Taoiseach's charge that Opposition parties - it seems he lumped the Labour Party in with all Opposition parties - are anti-enterprise in some way. That is far from the truth.

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