Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. The finance Bill gives effect to the tax changes announced in budget 2024, in addition to a number of other important provisions and changes to the tax code. The budget announced last month needed to deal with a number of shocks Ireland has had to face in recent years, especially energy prices and a sharp rise in inflation. Higher prices have hit lower and middle incomes households hardest and research has indicated that the incomes of these two groups have either fallen or stagnated in recent years.

Workers and families have been feeling the pain of the cost of living crisis for well over a year now, with incomes and household budgets being stretched to the maximum. Even though the rate of annual inflation has fallen from its peak of last year, it still remains high. While the Department of Finance expects this rate to moderate to 2.9% next year, it is important to note that prices are not expected to fall. The increase in prices is here to stay. The tax code can play an important part in supporting workers and households, especially with the cost of living crisis. The tax package needed to be fair, making sure that those on the highest incomes did not benefit disproportionately compared with those who need it most. For a long time, Sinn Féin has argued that the fairest way to reduce tax is through cuts to the universal social charge. We proposed a tax package focused on cutting the bottom rates of USC and increasing the entry point to the third rate, beginning the journey of removing the first €30,000 workers earn from liability to USC. In this finance Bill, the Government decided to introduce measures which mean that someone earning €35,000 a year will benefit by less than €310, while someone earning €200,000 a year will benefit by more than €860.How is that fair?

In terms of energy, the price of petrol, diesel, electricity, gas and home heating oil have all been spiralling upwards since 2022. Section 56 of the Bill extends the reduced 9% rate of VAT applying to electricity and gas, which we were glad to see because it is a measure Sinn Féin has called for repeatedly. However, the price of petrol and diesel at the pump continues to increase. It is very disappointing that the Government pushed ahead with more carbon tax hikes last month, further increasing fuel prices. It plans further carbon tax hikes in May and October next year but without access to affordable public transport, commuters and householders are taking the hit, with no alternatives being provided. As we have said previously in relation to carbon tax, there is too much stick and too little carrot. There is nothing here to help those using home heating oil. One third of households in the State, and two thirds of household in the north west, rely on home heating oil as their main fuel source but there is no measure to reduce its price. In fact, it will go up again in May. Sinn Féin proposed slashing the rate of excise duty to reduce the cost of a tank fill by €64.

Businesses also face into the continuation of what is effectively a cost-of-doing-business crisis. With the exception of a small few measures, the tax packages announced in budget 2024 will not deliver in a manner which matches the scale of the crisis faced by workers, families and businesses. Only this week I spoke to a small business owner where I live who is being stitched up by Flogas which is charging him 65 cent per kW when the going rate is actually 31 cent per kW. He is being asked to pay €3,500 to get out of his contract, even though there are fewer than 11 months left on his two year contract. That is just pure extortion and we need to see much greater intervention by the Government in terms of making sure these types of practices are not allowed to happen.

As we know, the rate of inflation is set to ease but the fact remains that prices will remain high and the cost-of-living crisis will persist. The impact of price and cost-of-living increases is most evident in the housing sector. We have a worsening housing crisis which is deeply affecting the living standards of so many of our citizens. It is also, embarrassingly, now affecting the competitiveness of our economy. Section 21 of this Bill is unbelievable. It provides a tax break of €600, rising to €1,000, for landlords. Professor Barra Roantree, formerly of the ESRI, has described this tax break as perhaps "the stupidest tax relief of recent times, against stiff competition.". The reality is that it will not keep landlords in the market but will just give more money to those who have already decided to stay in the market. This Government is giving more money to landlords than it is giving to struggling renters. These are the kinds of decisions being taken by this Government, against the backdrop of record high rents and record levels of homelessness. In Limerick city rents have gone up by 16% and in Limerick county they have gone up by 21% in one year. There will be 4,000 children in homeless accommodation this Christmas, a new record. There are 13,000 people in total in homelessness, which is also a new record. The figures have been going only one way under this Government, and that is the wrong way. The numbers just keep going up and yet the Government continues to ignore the calls to reintroduce a no-fault eviction ban. How high do rents have to go? How many people have to be homeless before the Government will listen, put its hands up and finally admit that it does not know how to solve this housing crisis? Every year we hear the Government's housing plans and targets but every single year since 2020 the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has missed his social and affordable housing targets, resulting in millions of euro in capital funding for social and affordable housing going unspent. To the end of 2022, the housing Minister missed those targets by 8,537 homes. That is just inexcusable. The quarter 3 progress report gave no information about social and affordable housing targets for this year. We can only assume that is because there is nothing to report. Let us look at the last available figures, up to the end of June. We know the target for the year was 9,100 new-build social homes but up to the end of June, the Government had managed to deliver just 1,400.When the Minister had a press conference last week, he refused to answer any questions in terms of exactly where those targets are at now. The target was for 3,500 affordable homes to be delivered this year. By the end of June, the Government managed to deliver 123. These are not just failures. They are the most chronic failures in terms of targets that are now acknowledged as not even being high enough in the first place.

I want to talk about the health crisis in the last couple of minutes because, again, that is a key part of this budget. I cannot go on without mentioning how this budget was a disaster for the ever-worsening health crisis. The Government took a deliberate decision to underfund the health system thereby posing a serious risk to patients and healthcare staff. It is difficult to comprehend the logic of a recruitment freeze at a time when trolley numbers are also reaching record highs. University Hospital Limerick, UHL, has been in crisis mode for so long that crisis mode has been normalised.

As it stands, UHL has a 13% higher attendance rate than any other hospital in the country. It has the highest number of over-75-year-olds than any other hospital in the country. However, it has a 30% lower bed base than any other model 4 hospital in the country. UHL deserves to have the same capacity as other hospitals in the country. The recruitment freeze will undoubtedly impact the hospital and is the most dangerous decision this Government could have made. Lives are literally at risk. Indeed, I met the staff of UHL three weeks ago and they are literally in despair now with this recruitment freeze. They expect their hospital to be effectively turned into a nursing home because there is nowhere for patients to go. There are 6,000 people on the home help waiting list as it stands and there is a freeze on hiring new home help workers. Again, it is a litany of failures.

The Finance Bill contains 98 sections in total and, obviously, in the speaking time we have, it is not possible to comment on every one of them. We will be going through them on Committee Stage, however. Sinn Féin proposed many amendments in the Dáil. We proposed a better way in our alternative budget. We cannot support tax measures that exacerbate the housing crisis and the cost-of-living crisis.

In the minute that is left to me, I want to echo a point that was raised by Senator Kyne with regard to the role of vulture funds. In terms of history, the Minister of State will know that it was the then Minister, Michael Noonan, who opened up the country to vulture funds in order to de-stress the banks. That was the phrase. They have certainly done that. They have done that by stitching up small businesses.

I quoted an example of a hotel in County Cork in this Chamber two weeks ago that was completely stitched up. This was a business that paid its loans month after month. It was late for two payments and that enabled the bank to sell the loan to a vulture fund. What those people have put up with since are absolute horrors in terms of charges, intimidation and the worst of practices. What we need the Government to do is intervene on this to end these practices. The Government's adherence to the free market at all costs seems to suggest that it is just not willing to do that. There is so much more I could say but I am pretty much out of time. I look forward to Committee Stage, but I clearly will be opposing this Bill today.