Seanad debates

Wednesday, 15 June 2022

10:30 am

Photo of Regina DohertyRegina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to take the motion although I know it was directed at the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Michael McGrath. We would swear listening to some of my colleagues on the left today that the motion seeks to divide Irish society. I am minded by something Senator Flynn has just said about needing to look after our own. The privilege of my career to date has been to be the Minister for Social Protection for four years, which is the role the Minister is privileged to hold today. As a co-drafter of the motion, I know it leads with the fact we need to secure a comprehensive welfare package to ensure all of those people on the single fixed income they receive from the State are well protected from the increase in the cost of living. I will also make no apologies for recognising that we have a squeezed middle. If we do not recognise that they cannot afford the cost of living increases that have happened in this country in the past six to nine months, they will become the new vulnerable group because they will not be able to afford their household outgoings. We will end up calling them the new working poor.

I make no apologies for looking for the bands of the social services supported through subsidies to be extended to include people earning between €30,000 and €60,000 a year. The subsidies I am looking to have extended by the Ministers for Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance include the child subsidy scheme. We know it has a band rate of between €26,000 and €60,000 at present. Those earning €26,000 get a sizeable portion of their childcare fees paid. As we go up the band to earnings of €40,000, €50,000 and even €60,000, people tell us the cumbersome access to the support grants almost negates the ability of the amount of money they get to have any impact on their childcare costs.

My colleague, Senator Maria Byrne, spoke about the cost of education. We want to decrease the cost of the fees in universities. The Minister with responsibility for further and higher education said this here this morning. More importantly we want to wider the access for SUSI grants. People who earn a decent wage of €40,000 and pay an enormous whack in tax are precluded from accessing SUSI grants.

We want to look at the cost of healthcare. In the most recent budget it was welcome that prescription charges were reduced from €120 to €80. I believe we can go further. We need to look at parking charges in hospitals. I call for the 20% reduction in transport fees and costs introduced several weeks ago to be made permanent.

This motion is a matter for the Minister for Finance. I know he has been asked by the leaders of the coalition parties to look at this. It demands that we seriously look at introducing a 30% tax rate. For years we have been speaking about the fact that people pay 40% at €36,000, which is far too early. This could only be called an average wage at this stage. It is far too early to be paying 40% in tax. I know that every year we try to protect people from any increases they might get in their salaries by widening the PRSI and USC bands but I have to say that is not good enough. We need to seriously think about doing this over the coming years.

I know this would not be cheap. Introducing a 30% band at the same rate as the 40% is paid this year could cost anything up to €1.5 billion per year over the coming years. We are in the lucky position of having more people working in the State than we ever had in our history. Those working people who go out early in the morning to work long and hard days struggle with the cost of living the same as everybody else on a fixed income. We need to make sure they know that we value the fact that work pays better. Right now it absolutely does not. If we do not do something serious, such as introduce a 30% tax rate next year or in the coming years, and indicate how the roadmap would be made out, we will be at next to nothing because we have been speaking about it for far too long.

I absolutely believe it is the responsibility of the Government to respond to the needs of its people in a sustainable and comprehensible way and this will happen through the budget. I make a call publicly here that I made privately at our meeting earlier. We cannot wait until October or January to recognise that petrol at €2.25 a litre in my local petrol station is absolutely unsustainable even for the people the left would call wealthy. It is not acceptable that the Government does not respond through a financial resolution. It must be done sooner rather than later. It is very difficult to justify that the Government's tax take on the increased petrol prices has gone through the roof while everybody is struggling. Everybody knows that the costs of petrol, diesel and green diesel have gone through the roof. We need to respond now.

I thank the Minister for coming and for her responses to date. I acknowledge the response from the Government, particularly from the Minister, with regard to the fuel allowance in recent months. It recognises that people need help. They need help more with regard to their energy costs. The change to the PSO levy announced yesterday is a welcome change. We need to see changes in the price of petrol and diesel in our forecourts and we need to see them now.

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