David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Obviously, we are in a better position with this social welfare Bill than we were with the first three from this Government. Having said that, we have to look at what has happened in the round, consider the Government's five budgets and look at this budget in its own right. We must consider the analysis of those organisations which are tasked with examining income inequality, the effects of the budget, who the real winners and losers are and so on. We have had five reports from the ESRI on the Government's five budgets, as the Minister of State knows. If he was honest, they do not paint a pretty picture at all in terms of the big winners. According to the ESRI, the top 14% of income earners were the biggest winners in budget 2016. I will read out one quote from Cormac Staunton from TASC:

In our analysis of last year's 'triple effect' of changes to tax bands, tax rates and USC rates we found that Budget 2015 gave the biggest cash return - in absolute and relative terms - to those earning €70,000: which we dubbed the Budget 'Sweet Spot'.

Those with the biggest incomes in the State got, in percentage and monetary terms, the biggest amount of cash. A single person on a middle income of €500 a week gained by €277, which is about one third of his or her take-home pay. A person on €700 a week gained €377, which is 1.3%. A person on €75,000 per year, or over €1,500 a week, gets €902, three times what somebody on €500 a week gets and 2% of their net pay. That includes me, the Minister of State and the very civil servants who craft the budgets. Maybe it is not a surprise but it is deeply unfair and it is the reality of what the Government has done.

It is against this backdrop that we look at what the Government has given back to the rest of society. If those on €500 a week, who are lucky to have a job, were not the big winners from the budget and if the bottom 60% gained less than the top 40%, then what about those on welfare? It is the same old story of scraps from the table which has been the hallmark of the Government for five years.

We have a Government that gave €181 million in a tax giveaway to the top 14% and yet did not do more for those on welfare, carers, people with disabilities and so on. Older people had their telephone allowance cut and many of the cuts that could have been restored were not. We have a health crisis, a housing crisis and a crisis in public services generally but none of that was dealt with in any comprehensive way. It is mainly a Fine Gael budget if we are to be honest. The big winners were the top 14%.

With budget 2016, the Government has made it clear that it is seriously out of step with the suffering of the ordinary people. Christmas comes but once a year but the other 51 weeks have not been made any easier by the small change promised by the €3 to €6 increase in the family income supplement, the €3 increase in pensions, the €2 here and €2.70 there for qualified dependents or the restoration of the €5 that was pillaged from children in previous cuts to child benefit.

The restoration of the respite care grant is to be welcomed. I severely criticised the cut at the time, so if there is a restoration it must be welcomed. I also welcome the increase in the period for which carer's allowance is payable after the death of the person being cared for from six to 12 weeks. I commend Senator Moloney for her work on this. I am a huge admirer of carers and the work they do. The Senator is absolutely right that without carers, we would have an awful lot more stress in our hospitals, which are already at pressure point in many cases with the accident and emergency departments and the lack of step-down beds and so on. Any supports that can be given to carers are to be welcomed. The reality is that this cut should never have happened in the first place. There are many cuts about which we can ask why on earth they were made. Choices were open to Governments throughout those years and yet these are the type of people who were penalised.

I also welcome the new tapered PRSI credit and the increase in the upper weekly earnings threshold to which the lower class A rate of employer PRSI applies. This is another measure which Sinn Féin has advocated and which we costed in our alternative budget. Sinn Féin would have introduced a new rate of 15.75% employer PRSI and a portion of salary paid in excess of €100,000 per annum to address the shortfall in the social insurance fund.

This is really where we come to the crux in terms of the type of society and economy we want. Obviously, we want to be competitive and to make sure that taxes on employers or businesses are not too high. In reality, we have one of the lowest employer PRSI takes in the entire European Union at a time of cuts in social welfare, the trolley crisis and the housing and homelessness crises. Either we are going to pay for these things and ask those who can afford it to pay a bit more, or we are not. Senator Quinn spoke about millionaires and I am delighted that he raised the issue. We have 14,000 millionaires in the State but what about the billionaires as well? When we ask those people to make a greater contribution - nothing too radical - it is dismissed as fairy-tale economics and we are told it cannot be done. We are told not to ask those at the top to make a greater contribution and yet we can bring all these cuts in for people on welfare and that is okay.