Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that No. 12 on the Order Paper, the National Asset Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2017 - First Stage, be taken before No. 1.

Yesterday, my party launched an alternative budget - and I look forward to the alternative budgets that will be produced by those who call themselves the opposition in this House - although looking at the news on RTE last night, one would not have thought that any alternative budget was launched. This alternative budget represents where we are as a party, what our priorities are and where we stand on the choices facing us such as tax cuts for those who are well off or investment in vital services. I commend my colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, and his team on the months of work they have put into preparing this fully costed alternative budget.

There is a stark choice to be made and the people need to know where the various parties stand and whose side they are on. We, in Sinn Féin, are clear that we stand with those who are continuing to struggle with poor services and severely stretched household incomes. This alternative budget is fully costed and works with the fiscal space of €650 million. It shows how only the top 3% of earners will pay increased personal taxation but that will give us €1.4 billion to invest in services. We present savings amounting to €102 million. This could provide us with a total increased fiscal space of €2.2 billion, which could be used for vital services.

Sinn Féin has chosen the side of the ordinary people who have yet to experience the economic recovery and who need a break. They were infuriated by the Government's slogan for the last election, "Keep the Recovery Going", because they could not see any recovery. They still cannot see a recovery. These are people in rural Ireland who have suffered because of a lack of infrastructure and who can barely afford to meet their bills, if at all. There are hundreds of people waiting on hospital trolleys. It is time for our economy to work for these ordinary people instead of just the few who always seem to win no matter what.

This budget means that with Sinn Féin in government, an additional 10,000 social houses and 4,500 genuinely affordable homes would be built to help tackle the housing crisis. The cost of child care would be halved as well as providing for increased pay for those working in the child care sector. We would tackle the crisis in our health service by providing an additional 500 beds, 2 million home help hours and 2,500 home care packages. This is in recognition of the role home care can play in keeping people out of acute hospitals, and long-term care in hospitals. This much needed investment would begin to reverse the savage cuts imposed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael while in government. In this alternative budget, Sinn Féin puts an average of €244 back into the pockets of the squeezed middle by abolishing the property tax.