Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

This time last year, in advance of the general election, the Government injected a sugar rush of once-off measures into the Irish economy, including a double payment for long-term social welfare individuals; €300 for fuel allowance on 4 November; €400 for working family payment on 4 November; €400 for disability invalidity pension and blind pension on 4 November; two double payments for child payment for each child, one on 5 November and the second on 3 December; €200 for the living alone allowance on 11 November; €400 for domiciliary care allowance and the carer’s support grant on 11 November; and €100 for each qualifying child for the qualified child payment on 25 November. Then what happened? On 29 November, there was the general election. This was an incredibly cynical action by the Government. What do these people get in this budget, however? There is nothing, nada, faic, zilch. The Government was showering its largesse on these individuals within a fortnight of the general election last year. This side of the general election, however, there is nothing for them whatsoever. In many ways, the Government has designed the budget around the election cycle and the needs of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael rather than on the economic cycle and the needs of the people. It is an incredible situation.

The Irish Wheelchair Association has estimated that people with disabilities will be €1,614 worse off annually because of this year’s budget, pushing those individuals into poverty. It is highly cynical that the Government blatantly buys an election and then the following year drops all of those individuals on which it showered money last year.

This budget is a disaster for whole swathes of society. Simply put, people will have less money in their pockets and will have to pay out more. Working families will pay more tax. Commuters will pay higher prices for fuel. Older people will be worse off in terms of purchasing power. Families will have to pay more for heating their homes and will face higher prices.

The Government announcement on housing is so frustrating. There was a VAT reduction in terms of construction, but only for apartments which will not be solden masseto families but, in the main, to property developers and property investment companies for rentals. Do not get me wrong. Aontú supported this cut in VAT for apartments but we wanted the Government to go far further. There should have been a VAT cut right across the construction sector. I am talking to builders in Meath at the moment and they are not working. They are not building. They say it is simply not viable for them to build. Having builders at home doing nothing in the middle of a housing crisis is incomprehensible. If the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, thinks the €8,000 benefit just for apartments will effect radical change in relation to housing, he is absolutely wrong.

There was nothing in the budget on the 4,000 empty local authority homes. There are 168,000 derelict and empty homes in this country. That is a massive amount. As I said yesterday, having derelict homes in the middle of a housing crisis is the same as exporting food in the middle of a famine. It is absolutely wrong. In its derelict homes plan, the Government is looking to create a new system and maybe legislate next year, a draft inventory for vacant properties maybe in 2027 and maybe create a tax in 2028. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in government for the past 15 years and the idea they are planning something that will not come to fruition for four or five years is wrong.

They talk about more gardaí, teachers and nurses but where are they going to live? If a nurse and garda marry each other and look to buy a house in the mid-east region, both incomes do not allow them to afford it. Unless the Government gets it together to provide homes, all the talk of new doctors, nurses, teachers and gardaí means nothing. In fact, 200,000 young people have emigrated from this State in the past number of years because the Government has made it impossible for them to afford a home.

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