Fiscal Planning Framework for Economic Certainty: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-27
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Richard O'Donoghue (II), Limerick County

The contributions from the Government side and their colleagues show why we are in the position we are in. I spoke to some of those who contributed. They said they would like to see the people in the middle, the working class, looked after in this budget. One person told me he got elected the same day as the Minister of State, which was the same day I got elected. Since I got elected, they are the people I have been looking to have looked after. It has taken the Government six years to even come out and say that it wants the people who are working to be looked after. Six years later, this is what the Government comes out with.
I will give the Minister of State a small insight into the six years his party has been in government. We will go to the working, squeezed middle. We will take an average house as an example. If somebody wanted to buy or build a 2,000 sq. ft house, it would have cost of €240,000 plus VAT. That meant that five or six years ago, that house cost of €272,406. Let us travel forward. Today, five or six years later, that same house costs €454,000, including VAT. The VAT to the Government has gone from €32,400 to €54,000. That is a tax take on somebody trying to provide their own home. It is the working squeezed middle. This is two people who are working, trying to provide a roof over their head, probably trying to start a family and trying to secure their livelihoods. What the Government has done with the stroke of a pen is that has taken €22,000 extra in tax from people building or buying their own house.
That is not all the Government has done. I will use the model of 40% of a person's income to afford a mortgage. Five years ago, if a person had to get a mortgage of €270,000 to build a house, they would have to have earnings of €3,830 per month to afford a repayment of €1,532 per month. That is based on a 4.75% interest rate. A person would end up paying €189,650 in interest on a house worth €270,000. By the time everything was repaid, a person would repay €460,000. Today, that house would cost €450,000. A person would have to have earnings of €6,252.50 per month for repayments of €2,500 per month. In five years, the Government has almost doubled the cost of buying or building a house. The Government has increased its tax take not only on the building of the house but the person is now paying 40% in income tax. It is tax on top of tax. That is what the Government has done in five years.
Every one of the Government speakers said there was so much money and that was why the Government could give the targeted €750 million. They said it was due to the war in Ukraine, the war in Iran and Covid. These are all knee-jerk reactions. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, told us yesterday that if the Government had to do this, it would have to put X amount of money away every year to counteract this. The problem is the Government has gone €1 billion over budget on a hospital that has not been delivered yet. It has misspent on bike sheds and huts - €1.4 million. If you add up all the money the Government has misspent, that would be money that would there today to introduce measures when prices rise. When fuel hits a certain level, for example, it could be automatically added. All the money the Government has misspent would actually cover the people today. It would bring down inflationary costs.
Everything the Government has done has driven inflation. It has doubled the cost of buying and building a house. It has doubled the cost of buying a car. It has doubled the cost of running a vehicle and it has doubled its tax intake on the same thing. That is all the Government is doing.
Yesterday I spoke to officials from the Department. I asked what the VAT intake was up by this year. The first thing they said was that it was up by 6%. Some 40 minutes later, they said it was only up by 3%. The officials do not even know what they are doing in their own Department. That is how clued in they are. These are the people advising the Minister. These are the people the Minister and the Government is defending every single day. The problem we have here is that Ministers are just fronts for Departments that are making mistakes and the Ministers are not holding them to account. The Ministers are just fronts and they are told what to do every day. When are Ministers going to take responsibility and take on their own Departments and tell them they are wrong? Tell people they are not the right people for the job, to get out and to get people who can actually manage the purse and finances and get us accountability. When are Ministers going to stand up for that? What is wrong is that Ministers are deciding to put their careers over the people of this country. It is all down to career politicians. The day people do not want me in this House, I will be quite happy to go. The day I cannot contribute to try to help the vulnerable people in this country, I will be quite happy to go.
The only reason I am here is to help those vulnerable people. It is not to get a job in Cabinet or a promotion like most of the Cabinet. They will do and say anything to get a better job. I do not mind if the Government delivers something. I do not mind if anyone in the House delivers something. My job in the House is to make sure that delivery is done. The Government can have all of the praise in the world for delivering once the job is done. That is a person who does not mind about careers. I have my career. I have family. I have dependents. They are crippled week in and week out with over-taxation by the Government. The Government has said it will deliver and provide a scheme here and there. The only scheme is the scheme the Government is doing for itself.
The Government introduced a retrofit grant. I have explained the cost of building over the past five years. The retrofit grant for oil-based properties to insulate houses requires silicone and PVC which are oil-based products, the cost of which have increased. The grants are worth nothing. The Government puts pressure on something that is inflated. The Government has put pressure on an oil-based product and is talking about the environment.
The Government is investing taxpayers' money and driving inflation. The Government has decided that when something is under pressure, it will put more pressure on it. We are one-tenth of 1% of global emissions. People in the country are going hungry. The Government thinks more about targeting something and trying to put fossil fuel vehicles off the road when they are the only thing that vulnerable people can afford in order to go to work. That is what the Government is doing. It is punishing everyone.
The Government has a big wad of money which it misspent. There should be a full inquiry into Departments regarding the misuse of funding. That is what should be done. We could then see how many people that misspent money could have helped. There are many career politicians in government who give an old spatter now and then but are not seen in their own areas. They are only seen there for a picture. They run in and out. They give all the promises to get themselves elected, but do not want to do any delivery. That is the issue with Government. Until the Government takes on its Departments and makes them accountable, it is only a front. That is what it is.
Minister are backing up something they are told before they walk into the House. They are handed a paper. I do my own. I do not need a Department to tell me it is wrong because I can see it in all of the paperwork we get and the misspent money in this country is all down to Departments giving the Government bad advice. Members of Government say, "Yes sir", "No sir" and "I want a promotion for that". That is what they do. The Government encourages and promotes people for doing wrong and every Irish person in this country is suffering.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:04+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-27