Ivana Bacik Budget 2025 – Leader’s Response

Go raibh maith agat Ceann Comhairle,

This country has resources which are the envy of many of our neighbours.

But, in the Ireland of 2024, even workers with good jobs and their own homes suffer from a lack of public infrastructure.

Those without homes suffer – those at the sharp edge of our Housing Disaster.

It’s not just that we don’t have enough homes.

We have overwhelmed health services.

Creaking public transport infrastructure.

Stalled capital investment.

All this results from a government which is content to rely on laissez-faire policies and hope for the best.

Rather than stepping up with the necessary state investment that can really address these challenges.

My colleague, Deputy Nash, treated us to some thought-provoking (and maybe puzzling) metaphors in yesterday’s debate.

One of those alluded to the composition of his dinner plate – a gravy-based analogy.

I will build on that to say that this Budget is all gravy and no train – no new infrastructure, or investment in new services that people are crying out for.

The Taoiseach has said he makes no apologies for this Budget.

I really think he ought to.

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Because this Budget represents another wasted year.

On top of the previous 8 wasted years.

That is the tragedy of this government.

As Ged said, you have contrived to waste a boom.

This Budget should have;

• Given all families and children the hope of a better future;
• Rewarded work, not by cutting taxes willy-nilly, but by taxing wealth first, and by using taxes to cut cost of childcare, healthcare and education, delivering of a real social wage.
• Changed the dial on building – to get us to that level of 50,000 new homes per year, and 50,000 deep retrofits.
• Delivered the massive investment we need to make homes warm, invest in renewables, and cut emissions.
• Finally fixed the tattered social contract, the idea that if you work hard, you’ll get on in life.

This Budget, and the four which came before it, have failed those tests.

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This was a year where you had the chance to turn things around.

To achieve better, and deliver for people who are relying on you to deliver.

To take the decision to invest in what matters.

We have the Apple Billions.

We continue to see record corporation tax receipts.

More people are at work than ever before.

But that’s not enough.

• It’s not enough for those without a home.
• It’s not enough for families who struggle every month to pay their household bills.
• It’s not enough for women who can’t go back to work because they have been told there is no childcare place for their pride and joy.
• It’s not enough for children who can’t go to school because there’s no classroom for them, or because they are waiting on an assessment or therapies – incredible in a wealthy country like ours.

Ceann Comhairle, it’s not enough for people waiting on buses which will never arrive, or waiting for a hospital appointment, or waiting for a recession and knowing that this time the Government has had now is being squandered.

They have failed to invest the money we have now – in infrastructure, homes, or a permanent end to the cost of living crisis.

They won’t invest meaningfully in projects that will last.

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When we make the call, they tell us that the country would run a deficit, had we not reaped ‘windfall’ corporation tax money, or the Apple Billions.

Yet they have structured our economy around that very system.

And, in this Budget, what have they done?

They’ve narrowed the tax base.

Increased one-off spending.

And they have financed all this with those windfall taxes!

So, what’s the difference?

They have no ambition.

I love this country, and I believe in what it can be.

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We must invest public money – to build better together.

That doesn’t mean a few token gestures here and there.

It means using our resources to end marginalisation.

And to invest in public services that we can all rely upon:

• Homes for all;
• Reliable public transport;
• Cleaner, cheaper energy;
• Decent healthcare, childcare, and eldercare.

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In Labour’s Budget document, we outlined key proposals to address the chronic infrastructure deficits in Irish society today.

Proposals like providing 6,000 publicly provided childcare places and a full year of paid leave for parents.

Or ensuring the building of 6,000 more social and affordable homes a year.

We also had proposals to tackle the Cost of Living – to reduce household bills.

To end Child Poverty.

To provide new Climate measures, like street-by-street retrofitting.

To address the recruitment crisis in the public services, lifting your recruitment-embargo-which-isn’t-a-recruitment-embargo-for-some-reason.

Free GP care for all children.

And a new Autism Special Needs Guarantee.

HOUSING

I have spoken at length about our Homeless Families Bill and Renters’ Rights Bill over recent weeks and years.

If the Government wanted to help children who are without a home – or facing housing insecurity – they would pass those bills next week.

It is not cost that has prevented them from doing so – it’s ideology.

Instead, you’ve just increased the renters’ tax credit.

Without measures to control those rents, that money will do little for those renters who are struggling to make ends meet.

But Ceann Comhairle, what stunned me most when we sat yesterday was this:

I heard little mention of social and affordable housing in the speeches from Government.

And no mention of homelessness.

Not one.

That is incredible when we now know that 14,486 or people living in emergency accommodation, including a devastating 4,419 children.

When you continue to miss your social and affordable building targets.

When those targets continue to be predicated on a fantasy, far below established need.

And when your definition of affordable continues to be anything but that.

It is extraordinary but not surprising.

As the Labour Party’s spokesperson on housing, I attend a great many housing debates, and panels.

A recurring feature of those panels has now become Fine Gael’s notable absence.

They have thrown in the towel on housing.

Yes, there is some new money for planning, and other measures.

But you are still only funding the social and affordable housing targets set out in 2021.

On retrofitting – a housing, cost of living and climate measure, there’s €469m for the national retrofit plan.

That is just a €32m increase on what was allocated to the SEAI last year.

There is no real increase either in the number of local authority homes to be retrofitted by the Department of Housing.

Most of the money you announced yesterday is money which had already been committed to bodies like the LDA – nothing new.

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So, what would we do?

On the spending side, increasing the supply of homes is the best way to help children who are victimised by Ireland’s housing disaster.

To provide greater supports to those in housing insecurity, we also want to double the Rent Tax credit to €1,500.

And introduce the Rents Register and Deposit Protection Scheme provided for in the Renters’ Rights Bill.

On that journey to delivering one million homes in 10 years – 50,000 new builds and 50,000 deep retrofits each year – we would:

• Build 22,000 social and affordable homes per year,
• Increase social housing supply by 2,000 to 12,000.
• Boost delivery of cost rental, tenant in situ, and local authority affordable purchase to more than 10,000 homes.
• And allocate €110m to convert so-called voids and end the blight of vacancy and dereliction.

CHILDCARE

On childcare:

A public childcare scheme has become trendy in recent times. To borrow a phrase, in Labour ‘we were doing it before it was cool’.

I am concerned that the so-called public models we have seen proposed by the larger parties are not what they seem.

There is a difference between a publicly funded system, and a publicly provided system.

The former is what we have.

It seems to be what Sinn Féin is calling for too.

Yesterday, you failed to change that system.

You claim to be reducing childcare costs by €1,100 per year.

At most, that represents just a €22 increase per week.

And for all the self congratulation about a public childcare system, you have provided just a €10m increase to overall capital expenditure for children.

No specific reference to building or buying childcare facilities.

What brand of universal, public system is that?

Pumping public money into the parts of a private system alone does not make a system public.

If that were true, you could call our broken private rented sector an enviable public service.

When political parties talk about public childcare, the question is not about whether to spend money.

It’s about how you spend it.

Parents need affordable, accessible childcare – while early years educators deserve decent pay and conditions.

Most of all, children deserve an equal start.

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So, what did we propose?

Labour would roll out 6,000 public childcare places each year.

That would build 30,000 places over five years.

We would also roll out a new ‘childcare in situ’ scheme to allow for the nationalisation of existing private services, where feasible and where a private provider wishes to withdraw their service.

This two-pronged approach would increase public supply of services, without removing parental choice.

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Costs for parents would be reduced to €200 per month, as we have proposed in our last two alternative Budgets.

Educators’ pay would increase under the existing JLC format until agreed public pay scales are put in place.

This is not a costly measure, when taken as a whole.

Public funding for childcare in Ireland remains a fraction of what other European countries invest.

Investing in childcare means investing in our children.

Our plan – universal, public childcare – means an equal start for every child.

Not increasing subsidies to the parts of the sector that just aren’t working for anybody.

EDUCATION

We all know the importance of education – not just for equipping our young people with the skills they need.

But for building community too.

For some children, school is a lifeline.

It is somewhere they can go every day that will be warm.

Where they can eat a hot meal.

Where there are trusted adults.

Our teaching and SNA staff nurture children through their formative years.

But not all children have the same equal access to a world class school experience.

Some children are hindered by poverty, where others can flourish.

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Labour would introduce a new DEIS+ model.

The original DEIS Programme, developed by the late Niamh Bhreathnach, is a proud Labour achievement.

But the programme has become a victim of its own success.

Principals from the most disadvantaged areas in the country are now calling for a second stream, DEIS+.

This would be a focused stream of investment to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and trauma in areas with long term disadvantage.

We provide initial funding of €3m for the creation of DEIS+.

You didn’t mention it at all.

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Before I close, I want to address one of the worst inequalities inflicted on children in Ireland.

It is a scandal that hundreds of children had no special needs educational facilities available to them at the start of this school year.

Or had to travel long distances to access appropriate settings.

Labour would end this with an Autism Guarantee – investing in better planning to ensure suitable places and supports for every child.

More teachers and special school places.

More in-school therapies, school transport, and better SNA training and conditions.

Just €10m has gone to Children’s Disability Network Teams – and at a time when the Minister of State who is responsible for them projects that the waiting list will breach 20,000 by the end of the year.

On disability, generally, the Minister for Public Expenditure told us yesterday that €336m has been allocated.

The number of beds he refers to is 70 “residential care beds”.

That’s an abysmal number of beds, given the demand is conservatively 10 times that.

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Tens of thousands of children are failed by this government’s policies.

Nearly 90,000 children live in consistent poverty.

The big response to “eradicating child poverty” is a small reduction to childcare costs, free GP care up to 8, double Child Benefit and 400 to working family payment recipients.

That is not the answer.

I have never believed in the politics of ‘trickle down’.

But addressing child poverty will lift society as a whole.

Our Labour Budget contained radical, realistic plans to address the real, economic insecurity impacting on people’s lives.

It would put an end to the Hibernian paradox: a cash rich country, with poor infrastructure and services.

The Taoiseach is still towing his line.

“My intention is that this Government should run the full term.”

That’s a direct quote; I’ve left out the wink and the nod.

Is anyone under any illusions?

With respect, the Taoiseach should cut out the nonsense.

End the pantomime and call an election.

Let’s have a debate on the choices facing voters.

Let us debate how best we protect the soul of the country.

The parties of the status quo are incapable of fixing the problems we have.

The evidence is all around us.

Conversely, we in Labour have a fully costed plan to provide sustainable solutions to the cost-of-living crisis – to reduce household bills.

This is what this country can achieve.

We can build better housing together.

We can build better healthcare together.

We build a better future for our children together.

We can build better together.