Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The best way to tackle the issue is to apply an effective tax rate to encourage owners to move vacant sites on and back into the marketplace. Let us be frank. This is the last effort we will see the Government make on this matter and it is not an effort at all. It is just another means of avoiding a key issue and looking after its own people as opposed to tackling the issue of vacant homes. That is not good enough.

I am hugely disappointed that the proposed rise in the minimum wage is less than the rate of inflation. In effect what this Government is proposing for the lowest paid workers is a pay cut. How can that be justified? It is interesting to note that Cliff Taylor, who is certainly not a Sinn Féin supporter, wrote in an article in The Irish Timesthis afternoon that most people are still going to be worse off after this budget. The newspaper also rubbished the vacant homes tax as a fig leaf.

Fundamentally, the Government had opportunities to make fairer and better choices. Above all, the Government failed on the issue of certainty. As families go to bed tonight and face into the winter, what certainty do they have? Do Senators on the Government benches really believe that the energy providers will not hike their prices again to snaffle up the credits of €600 paid in three instalments of €200? Of course they will. Where is the certainty for working people and families? The Government has not delivered and people will quickly see that.

On a fundamental issue of fairness, the €12 increase in social welfare payments is simply not enough. Sinn Féin proposed an increase of €17.50, which is a significant difference, because we know people are hurting. The Government could have made better choices. I notice, for example, that the special assignee relief programme, SARP, is still belting away making sure that millionaires continue to get tax breaks so that they can become even wealthier. That is a political choice Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael make year after year. They take the richest people in the State and make sure they can write off even more of their tax to make even more millions for themselves, while social welfare recipients are left with just a €12 increase. The facts are stark. This is another budget that favours the better off and fails working families. We deserve better.