Finance Bill 2022: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2022-11-29
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Paul Gavan (SF), Labour Panel

I will start where the last speaker left off. Facts are important as well, so I will start with some facts. Those facts, the latest homelessness figures, were announced last Friday and are the worst homelessness figures in the history of the State. Some 11,397 people are homeless, including 3,480 children. They are the highest figures ever in the history of the State. I checked the figures earlier. In 2016, when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael first came together to support each other, the homeless figures were very bad at 5,000. In the seven years since, they have more than doubled them and they keep getting worse.
Average rents are up 14% in a year to €1,688 per month. House prices and rents have reached historic highs and are still rising. Some students, and Members will all know this, have had to give up college courses because they cannot find accommodation. We have children sleeping not only in hostels, but in cars and tents. Of course, we have the spectre of emigration back.
I was chatting to colleagues from University Hospital Limerick this evening and they told me directly, first-hand how nurses are voting with their feet now. They are leaving University Hospital Limerick - some to take jobs in factories. Senior nurses are leaving to take jobs in factories. Others are leaving the country because they simply cannot afford to live due to the price of accommodation. We have a maternity ward in Limerick that has been closed since the summer because they cannot staff it with the people they need. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, has called on the Government to provide accommodation supports to enable nurses to stay in their jobs and be recruited. That is an issue that was not responded to in this budget.
I want to quote Pat Dennigan from Focus Ireland. After those horrendous figures on Friday, he said:
In the face of these shameful figures, it is important to remind ourselves that homelessness is not inevitable. It is not a natural phenomenon, it is the result of bad policies and can be ended, over time, with better policies delivered with urgency. ... the failure of successive governments has led to a crisis where nearly 3,500 children will spend Christmas in emergency accommodation.
That is the view of the head of Focus Ireland, who is someone I hope the Minister of State would respect.
I was at the housing protest in Dublin along with thousands of other people on Saturday. I was very struck by what Phil Ni Sheaghda of the INMO said:
We know that rents in this city and in other parts of our country have now gone beyond the salaries of many reasonably [priced] workers ... nurses, midwives, teachers, guards and all other professionals that are very necessary to keep our society going, who now are paying over 50% of their wages [in] rent. That’s simply not affordable [and] they will not stay.
That is what the head of the nurses’ organisation in this country said. The depth of this crisis is absolutely horrendous. To be absolutely clear, I am dealing with facts here. The Government failed horrendously on housing and, unbelievably, it gets worse month after month.
While I will not agree with most of what Senator McDowell said, he is right, as is Senator Casey, about the vacant homes tax. It is absolutely hopeless. Indeed, colleagues from Fine Gael have said to me off the record they can see it will not do anything to change the situation. There was an opportunity to do something in relation to the vacant homes, but the Minister of State did not do it. It is another failed opportunity.
I want to talk about the cost of living. I do not know whether the Minister of State listened to “Morning Ireland” this morning and heard the report on Mid West Simon in Limerick, where the food banks are now facing unprecedented demand. Some 7,000 people are now dependent on food banks, including 2,000 children. That is not Sinn Féin propaganda; those are the facts as presented by RTÉ this morning. They interviewed a worker from Mid West Simon who explained how one woman, with tears in her eyes, approached the door of Mid West Simon to ask whether she could get a bag of porridge. That worker then asked whether we have really come to this in this day in age, that people are so desperate for even basic necessities. I refer to the 7,000 people across Limerick, north Tipperary and Clare, including 2,000 children. It is not a natural phenomenon; it is the result of failed policies. Let us be very clear on that. It is very clear that this budget does not deliver enough in relation to the cost-of-living crisis.
Equally, I want to recognise the fact that in terms of the challenges being faced by small and medium enterprises, again, this budget does not deliver. SMEs are the backbone of our community and local economies. The Government must continue to look at more measures to support them at this difficult time. In Limerick, where I live, a number of businesses have already closed or announced they will close soon. Next month, we will be losing Miss Marples Tea Room after 11 years, La Fromagerie cheese shop closed last week and Bakehouse 22 closed last month after 27 years in business. It is sad and I wish all of the owners of those businesses well. I know that every one of them had a very heavy heart having to make that decision to close their doors. We are acutely aware of the challenges that SMEs are facing right now, particularly the impact of rising energy costs. We proposed solutions, such as the business energy support scheme, and in our alternative budget call for the creation of a new credit guarantee scheme led by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, and backed by the State to help energy-intensive sectors, especially SMEs, microbusinesses and family businesses that are facing the brunt of these increased costs. If the Minister of State does not take further action on that particular issue, we will see a horrendous level of closures in the new year. Again, while the Government has taken some measures, it has not done enough.
I want to take the Minister of State up on that tax issue briefly. He said in his speech that his focus is on low and medium taxpayers. However, here is the thing. In section 9, the changes made to income tax will mean that someone with an income with €35,000 will benefit by €191 from changes to income tax and the USC, while someone with an income of €100,000 will benefit by €831. How on earth does that benefit low and medium taxpayers? It clearly benefits the well-off much more than that. We proposed a series of tax cuts that focused on low-income and middle-income workers, in reality, but again the Government rejected that.
While we are on the topic of tax, once again – the Minister of State might address it this time, because in the past he has ignored the issue – I refer to the special assignee relief programme, which is absolutely scandalous. This is a tax break to reward millionaire bosses across the State. It allows them to write off up to two thirds of their income tax because they happen to be in positions of power in multinational companies. It costs €42 million. At a time when that woman is reaching and begging for a bag of porridge and people are facing unprecedented poverty, how in God’s name can the Minister of State justify this outrageous subsidy to the richest millionaires in this State? It is absolutely outrageous. I will tell you what it shows. We were talking about class politics in this Chamber. I will note that there is not one whit of difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They are as one at this point in time, and that speaks volumes.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:20+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-11-29