Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

It is my opinion, but it is shared by a lot of people out there, that budget 2026 failed to deliver any real hope or pathway for the families and individuals left behind by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. Every week, new families or individuals who are homeless or facing homelessness turns up at my constituency office. That is fact. There is nothing in the budget that will bring any hope, comfort or change for those who are facing this awful future. Sinn Féin has consistently called for a radical overhaul of housing policy, arguing for an increased investment in affordable and social housing. However, budget 2026 is like every other opportunity this Government has let slip through its fingers. It fails to adequately address this problem in any meaningful way. The Government has made promises of more funding for housing construction, but we have heard that before. Sadly, the scale of new builds remains inadequate to meet the demands. The housing waiting list continues to grow and the affordability crisis continues to worsen, especially for low- and middle-income families. Rising rents and house prices continue to push working-class families further away from home ownership. After almost 15 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, the idea of owning your own home has become as remote a possibility for many young people as winning the lotto.

I have served on my local drugs task force since it was established many years ago. Some 25% of the funding allocated last year appears to have been stripped away now that the Government has won the election. A total of €3 million has been snatched away. Many valuable diversion, residential or locally based programmes will simply not have the money to keep going. Local drug or alcohol task forces are still on lower funding than they were in 2008, despite more areas of work and a massive increase in the populations they serve. The problem is getting worse. Sinn Féin firmly believes that every person, family and community has the right to recover. Our alternative budget would have made this promise a reality.

Despite Government promises to address climate change and reduce carbon emissions, budget 2026 does little to mitigate the high cost of energy and transport for many families. Sinn Féin has called for a more substantial investment in renewable energy and public transport in order to reduce the financial burden on families. Sinn Féin supports a just transition. Rising electricity and fuel prices are due in no small part to the Government's obsessive drive towards higher carbon taxes. Families will continue to struggle with transportation and energy costs.

There is also a failure to address or reduce the pupil-teacher ratio in our primary schools. One school in my constituency of Dublin South-West will be down another teacher next year, having already lost one last year, meaning that more children are going to be grouped together in multigrade classrooms. This is far from the ideal learning environment and something that we are supposed to have long left in the past. For many, budget 2026 will be remembered as a failure and as an example of the Government speaking of both sides of its mouth, saying, on the one hand, that the economy is strong while, on the other, saying that there is no space to reduce the cost-of-living burden on families.

The Government's failure to adequately address housing shortages, healthcare funding, the carers and the cost of a disability, regressive taxation and the high cost of energy and transport mean that many families will continue to face economic hardship. Who is the successful economy for? The Sinn Féin proposal to provide more equitable solutions, such as increasing investment in social housing, improving public healthcare and reforming the tax system remain vital in the context of ensuring a fairer and more sustainable future for ordinary workers and their families. Under Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, working families in Ireland will continue to bear the brunt of economic policies that disproportionately benefit a wealthy elite and leave the most vulnerable behind. What we have seen is an unfair budget for many people and it is ordinary people who are bearing the burden once again. The budget promised a lot but has not delivered for ordinary people.

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