Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I will try not to repeat points I made in my first speech with the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath. There are some points in the budget that I do welcome. The decision to cut student fees by €1,000 is very welcome. I do find it bizarre that the Government is going to put that back up by €500 the following year. Perhaps that is something the Government should reflect on. Hard-pressed parents might not tolerate it, having seen their fees reduced by €1,000 this year because of the cost-of-living crisis, if it reverts to just a €500 cut the following year. That seems to be what the Minister said today. If I have misunderstood, the Minister of State might please come back to me. It seems a strange way to proceed. Sinn Féin's position is that we believe fees should be abolished over a number of years. We believe education is a right and not a privilege. I would be interested in the Minister of State's comments on that point.

The provision in respect of primary school books is very welcome. It is something we have said for years in here. I recall the days when Fergus Finlay was in Barnardos and constantly made this point about how we can make a real difference for families by taking out the cost of returning to school each year. It is a welcome measure and I acknowledge that. A double payment of child benefit is something Sinn Féin has called for as well. We are glad to see it in the budget.

The key point, which I will reiterate because it is so important, is about giving families certainty. That is our difficulty in respect of the Government's decision on these individual energy credits, the €200 payments. I understand people will welcome them. The difficulty is that we know prices will continue to go up and that energy providers are really profit-gouging in some cases. That has not been said but we know it is the case. I would have every expectation that the €600 credit, provided in three €200 tranches, will be snaffled up in price rises. That is why we would prefer to see the energy price cap. I did say in my earlier speech that there are no simple solutions here. There are flaws whichever way we go about this. The energy price cap would make the difference in terms of giving families certainty. I do not think families are going to be switching on the heating this evening on the basis of today's budget, although it is quite chilly outside. They do not know what they are facing. Our price cap would have given them that certainty.

I want to check one thing which the Minister of State might confirm for me. As far as I can see, there does not seem to be one single additional acute bed delivered today in the budget. The Minister of State might let me know if I am right. I want to be fair to him but I do not see it there. On the situation in housing, I have to be frank. The Government is failing on housing. The Government's own targets are not going to be met this year of 12,600 units in social and affordable housing. It is going to be way off that from what I can see. We believe there should be 20,000 social and affordable houses built. In our budget costed by the Department of Finance, we have shown how that can be done. The homelessness figures are shocking. I reiterate that homelessness has gone up by 25% since April of last year. Child homelessness is up by 43% since April of last year. That is the record of this Government. It is clearly failing in housing. We need to see real action and I do not see it.

I am thinking particularly of the people I know in Limerick who still have adult children living with them at home at the moment, which is quite an unnatural state of being. They are living at home because they cannot afford the rents in Limerick. There are shocking rents of €1,200 or €1,400. I made the point earlier that rent increases in Limerick over this year have been €1,800. The idea of a renter's tax credit was first introduced by us. Our credit would certainly be a lot more than €500. It would be one month's rent. The key point is that we would freeze rents. If we do not freeze rents, we will end up with rent hikes continuing. I know of landlords who will be very quick to snaffle up that €500, unfortunately. The key issue in terms of affordability of renting has not been addressed in this budget. I asked the Minister who was here before the Minister of State to tell us where they came up with the figure of €500. It certainly does not relate to rent in an affordable way. As a colleague of mine said here, it is effectively about one week's rent out of 52. Is that the only difference the Government is going to make for renters who are getting hammered to the point where they cannot save money to buy homes of their own? It is a fundamental problem and it is now a generational problem. There is a whole generation of young people in their twenties who frankly have no hope of owning a home unless we see a drastic change in policy. The drastic change in policy we are calling for is the very one the Government's own think tank, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, called for, namely a doubling of investment in housing. The ESRI looked at the Government's housing programme and said the Government could double the figures, the State coffers would allow it to do so and it should be done. The Government has not done so and it is causing significant distress in terms of homelessness but also in terms of a lack of hope.

One of the things that concerns me about this budget is that I do not think there is enough in it to stop many of the young people I am talking to from continuing on in their decision to emigrate. That is now another factor that has come back into play in our country, ironically not because of lack of work, which was normally the reason people would leave, but because they cannot afford to actually live in this country. On my way to the protest on Saturday I met a young teacher in Limerick who came on the bus with me up to Dublin. She explained how she had left Dublin the year before, giving up a teaching job in Dublin, because she could not afford the rent there. She is now living with her parents and plans to go to Dubai in a year's time. That is what is happening to our best and brightest young people. If the Minister of State can point to the measures in this budget that are going to help that person, he might please do so, but I beg him not to suggest the €500 tax credit is going to be part of that because it is next to worthless, frankly.

I would be interested to hear the Minister of State's views on the tax changes. We make no apologies for the fact that we would have focused tax cuts around universal social charge, USC, and low and middle-income workers. The bulk of the tax changes in today's budget benefit just one out of four workers in the State.I will cite again the example I gave earlier, because the previous Minister of State did not acknowledge it. Someone earning €135,000 per year will benefit to the tune of €830 in tax reliefs whereas someone earning €36,000 per year will benefit by just €190. That is just grossly unequal. It is not what will benefit our nurses, teachers and private sector workers on €36,000. The Government has spent over €1 billion on tax measures that will benefit mainly just one in four of our workers. Overall, this package is not one that delivers for people. As I said, the shine is coming off this budget very quickly.

I have a last point, on which I will be interested in hearing the Minister of State's comments. The only thing the Government has done for people who rely on home heating oil is increase the cost. One in three people in this country relies on home heating oil, yet the Government has effectively put the price up. How are those people supposed to manage? Why have there not been more measures for them, such as that suggested by Sinn Féin, namely, a focused retrofit scheme for people who use solid fuel? More could have been done in this regard today. It is another budget of missed opportunities.