David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House.

There are some positive elements in this budget, but it is not fair to characterise it as modest or sustainable, or even a neutral budget, for the majority of working families. The reality is that one can never look at a budget without looking at the bigger economic context and also all the budgets that have gone before. As the Minister will accept, after seven years of austerity many working families are in an unsustainable position where they simply cannot afford to pay any more and they are looking for a break. These are the families who were caught with the universal social charge, increases in PRSI, the household tax which became the property tax, cuts to child benefit, increases in college fees and cuts to supports for students going to college, cuts to medical cards and, of course, cuts in health, etc.

Whatever small adjustments were made in this budget for those families will be wiped out by water charges. The Minister of State will have seen 100,000 people on the streets of Dublin. That was an outpouring from those who simply have had enough. I have challenged the Leader of the House to answer a simple question on a number of occasions but, to date, he has not been able to answer it. Some 180,000 families are in mortgage distress. They cannot afford to pay their mortgages. There are many more families who cannot afford to pay basic utility bills. There are many families who have no disposable income and there are more who cannot put food on the table. There are many homes across the State where the heating tanks are empty with no oil. The Government will place water charges on their lap. What bills should they not pay? Should they allow their mortgage to go into deeper debt to pay the water charge or should they not provide food for their children to pay the water tax? The reality is that the Minister has political choices and what he could have done in this budget was abolish the property tax, abolish water charges and put in place higher taxes on higher earners.

The Minister of State sniggers because he simply does not accept-----