Rónán Mullen (Independent)

Ba bhreá liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach. Tá sé deacair d'éinne a ghlacadh cé chomh deacair is atá rudaí sa tír aon cáineadh a dhéanamh ag an am seo. Is léir go raibh rudaí deacra le déanamh sa cháinfhaisnéis. Ag an am céanna, ní féidir a shéanadh go bhfuil daoine maithe gonta toisc na cinnithe atá tógtha ag an Rialtas. Tá ceisteanna le chur faoi na roghanna a rinne an Rialtas.

Anybody who is serious about politics knows we must be responsible at a time like this and I have striven to be responsible in any communications I have made about the economic crisis and actions to be taken. I have discouraged and opposed any decisions by people, for example, to go on strike or on days of protest, which only entrench us in the difficulties we find ourselves. Such actions militate against the necessary solidarity to help us deal properly as a country with the challenges that face us. I strongly believe that.

That does not mean every and any measure which the Government takes at this time in the name of putting the economy right can be justified. Those of us who are either Independent or on the Opposition benches perhaps have greater freedom to exercise our critical faculties and take a hard look at the various proposals and decisions made by the Government. It is necessary to criticise.

It is also necessary to state that there is enormous hurt out there among different categories of people in our society. There are people who have worked hard and feel that their future security has been undermined. For example, I have heard from teachers today who are extremely concerned about implications for them into the future with what is proposed on how their pension will be calculated along the mean of their earnings over a lifetime working as distinct from final salary at exit from employment.

It would be unfair if we had a well-resourced section of the community, having completed a life's work, in receipt of a large income from the State with an under-resourced working populous struggling to make ends meet at a critical time in their life and when rearing families. However, at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that good people feel that their security could be snatched from them as they approach the end of years of dedicated service in employment.

Prior to the budget, I spoke sincerely and seriously about the issue of child benefit. I acknowledge that the Government has shielded low income families and those on social welfare from the worst of the cuts to child benefit but I also heard the excuses about it being too complicated to means test or tax the payment. I have great respect for Senator Brady but, contrary to what he said, the reason high earners should receive child benefit is because it is the State's way of supporting those who do the most important work of all in our society, which is that of bringing up the next generation, the people who will pay for our pensions and care for us in future years.

There has been a failure at the highest level of our society for years to recognise the importance of family life. People then wonder why there are so many latchkey kids, why many children do not have the access they should to father figures, in particular, in their lives and why parents sometimes feel they must over-compensate and feel guilty because they are forced into lifestyles that diminish their access to their children in order that they can care for them and provide them with the nurturing they need. The poison in this can be traced back to a Fianna Fáil Government and Charlie McCreevy, in particular, and the introduction of tax individualisation, a heartless form of social engineering which essentially decreed that it was more important to have people in the workplace than with their families. With that ruthless policy, the valuable contribution made by parents who chose to stay at home was completely underestimated and disregarded by the State. We have a continuation of this policy with the cut to child benefit. As someone who hopes in the future to be blessed with children, I have often stated people such as myself should pay more in tax to support what parents do in our society as they bring up the next generation.

I received a letter from Dr. Luke Raeside, a colleague in academic life, and his wife over recent days in which they express better than I can their deep concerns about this budget. They regard it as an assault on no, low and middle income families. They state:

We are hard-working, well-educated, parents of six young children between the ages of 2 and 12 years. We are single income family and have been getting by (just about) with a single income since the 1996. We have both worked in the private sector over the years, however, in the last ten years we have relied on one income from the public sector. We have been in receipt of the Family Income Supplement and the medical card for the past few years. We are not well-off and we are never comfortable but we have always strove to get-on-with-it and continue to rare our children in a stable and happy home.

In recent years (the so-called Celtic Tiger years) we have witnessed the introduction of the under-6 payments and the increases in children's allowance which have had the effect of making our lives and the lives of our children more sustainable and less of a struggle. We have become accustomed to these payments and we have built our lives and the lives of our children based on the incomes we have come accustomed too. Slowly but surely we stabilized our situation albeit with massive debts to manage in terms of mortgage and the general cost of living. Now Fianna Fail and the Greens have in a very short time (the last 18 months) removed or reduced the payments which our family were accustomed to and relied on for our everyday living. These reductions and removals have damaged our family's financial stability. Worse still the introduction of a pension levy (a pay-cut) earlier this year cost our family approximately €320 a month and was a severe financial shock as a result of which we have had to make serious adjustments to our lives. Of course we also had to endure many of the tax increases which were introduced in the 2009 budget. Now, Fianna Fail and the Greens have decided to kick us when we are down and only just beginning to adjust to the earlier pay-cut with a further pay-cut of approximately 7%. We acknowledge that the changes in children's allowance will not take effect on us at this time while we are in receipt of the FIS, however, the increase in the threshold levels of the FIS of €6 a month will result in a real reduction in FIS payments should we qualify for this again in the new year. We would estimate that our monthly income has been hit with approximately €1000 in reductions while families on very large incomes, and no children, have faired much better. Fianna Fail and the Greens have openly attacked families on no-, low-, and middle incomes and all this with a prelude to an economic recovery in the eurozone and an inevitable increase in mortgage interest rates. In fact, our mortgage company have already increased our mortgage payments by €400 in the last six months as they implemented a review clause in our tracker contract ... THE 4 BILLION IN CUTS DID NOT HAVE TO BE ACHIEVED THIS WAY AND THIS WAY ONLY, THERE WERE ALTERNATIVES, AN INDISPUTABLE FACT! Even those families on social welfare have not been spared from the most capitalist budget we have ever witnessed, Fianna Fail and the Greens have implemented the IBEC agenda without any regard for our constitution to protect the family, this is a republic not a business.

I do not blame the Minister for this because she is committed to doing the right thing but Governments in recent years have made no attempt to honour what our Constitution says about marriage and the family. This is an indisputable fact. I have had discussions with the Minister and she is open to suggestions in this area. I referred to tax individualisation but the proposed civil partnership legislation will provide for the spending of taxpayers' money in a discriminatory way by giving tax funded rights to certain groups of people while ignoring mutually dependent scenarios, for example, carers and siblings.

The letter continues in that vein and I endorse strongly what they say. However, these people are not cranks. They represent the ordinary, decent people of Ireland, cosmhuintir na hÉireann. I understand the Government has hard choices to make but, along with many others in recent weeks, I said the most vulnerable in our society should not be targeted. I lament the failure to get back on track with the overseas development aid budget. That should not be viewed as a naive and idealistic comment because people in our world suffer in ways we cannot imagine and our contribution makes a major difference. In welcoming the Minister and acknowledging her sincere bona fides, I also lament the fact that the Government has not had a serious strategy to cherish marriage and family life in Ireland and what has happened with child benefit exemplifies this like no other issue.