Solidarity TD says less well off will pay for new communications unit

Solidarity TD Paul Murphy said the budget had revealed how people on social welfare and low-paid workers would pay for the Government's spin.

It had been said, he added, the Government’s strategic communications unit would not cost anything. “But we see from these documents it will cost us €5 million,’’ he said.

Mr Murphy said James Connolly had used the phrase "ruling by fooling'' to describe what he called "British art''.

But it was an art the Government was trying to take up with a view to spinning anything that happened, particularly budgets, he added.

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Mr Murphy said there was an alternative, which required breaking the rules of neoliberal capitalism.

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said it was "a budget of miserable crumbs'' which would do nothing to solve the most urgent social crises facing the country.

These was the housing disaster and homelessness and the chaos in the public health system, he added. “This budget will do absolutely nothing to deal with the gaping, growing, obscene inequalities in the distribution of wealth and income in our society,’’ he added.

No affordable housing

Mr Boyd Barrett said the most obvious example was the housing crisis.

“I do not know where to begin in expressing my anger and frustration at this budget when it comes to dealing with the housing and homelessness crisis,’’ he added.

“It simply beggars belief that in this budget there is only provision for 3,800 directly constructed council and approved housing body houses next year to deal with the scale of the crisis we now face.’’

Independent TD Mick Wallace said the budget was a "serious damp squib'' and particularly disappointing in view of it being the first to come from Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and during the Taoiseach's time in office.

“It breaks my heart that the Government has been so incapable of dealing with the housing crisis,’’ Mr Wallace added.

He said no affordable housing scheme was proposed.

The stock of social housing countrywide was nine per cent, while the European average was 17 per cent.

‘No vision’

Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy said while elements of the budget were welcome, it was very much focused on the next general election rather than the next generation.

"It is a skin-saving budget for Fine Gael, decided to pacify their natural voter base and their Government partners rather than show ambition and vision,'' she added.

Ms Murphy said the so-called rainy day fund would not see a penny put into it until 2019. “And what constitutes a rainy day anyway?’’ she added.

She said looking at the scale of the housing emergency, with 3,000 children in emergency accommodation, she did not see a rainy day but a tsunami.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said while the budget contained a whole range of small measures, there was no vision, sense of direction or purpose or evidence of anything being done differently.