It has been a little over a month since the Minister for Finance and Minister for public expenditure stood in this Chamber and delivered to the country this Government's budget for 2026. We heard on that day all about the choices this Government was making - which industries it wanted to give tax breaks to, which boardrooms would be popping Champagne, and which food chains would see bumper profits next year under its watch. We heard all about the great choices this Government wanted to make while the cost of living, energy, groceries and housing skyrocketed. On a quiet Wednesday afternoon a month later, with much less fanfare, we get to the stark reality of the flipside of those choices. Now, we get to the detail in cold, hard print. An itemised list of exactly who this Government has chosen to leave behind - the carers, those facing redundancy, unemployment and underemployment, people living with disabilities and the children living in desperate, degrading poverty. The overarching problems I have with the social welfare Bill are twofold. On the one hand, the increased rates of social welfare payments do not go far enough in themselves to address inequality and the colossal cost of living for people on low incomes. We in the Social Democrats went further in our alternative budget on almost every point in this Bill. We went further by as much as 50% on most payments. On the other hand, as important as those real points of difference and rate increases are, we also in our policy, which this Government has completely failed to even consider, tried to begin a radical transformation of the social protection system. Our alternative budget was not one of mere one-upmanship with more resources put into core rates, even though we did increase them. Fundamentally, we tried to address the structural problems in the social protection system with the real, innovative and forward-thinking policy solutions that were so necessary in this country. I am conscious that this Bill introduces some non-financial measures. About 750,000 people will be auto-enrolled into pensions called the My Future Fund in the new year. Those individuals will see their take-home pay drop by between €300 and €1,200 per month in some of the most significant financial restructuring of personal finances in this country in many years. I am concerned that the Government has not sufficiently prepared for this large societal change. At its peak, the Government is planning to increase investment in pensions to the tune of €4 billion per year, or nearly 4% of the country's private occupational pension landscape, on supporting auto-enrolment, yet it has crucially never commissioned any independent assessment of the scheme. This is deeply concerning; a lapse in governance akin to building a city the size of Limerick without consulting a professional planner, if one were to use the same proportions. It gives me great pause. I strongly urge the Government to consider how it will ensure proper assessment, governance and oversight of the scheme in this Bill as it makes its way through the House. I acknowledge the adjustment in the Bill and the amendment on the Pensions Authority review. There is a narrative, which the parties in this Government have indulged in at times, about jobseeker's benefit and allowance. It is a narrative that is not accurate or fair. That narrative portrays jobseeker's benefit and allowance as luxuries afforded to individuals by a generous State at best, or at worst as a dole payment to people who do not get up early enough in the morning, as a former Taoiseach put it. A great many people on jobseeker's are working. They work part time or in unpaid roles, are transitioning to care work or engaging in voluntary work. Many, particularly young people, are not unemployed but underemployed, still finding their feet in life while trying to make ends meet. Of those who are not working, huge numbers find themselves in that position for the first time in many years, thrust into a moment of unique precarity and insecurity in their lives through no fault of their own off the back of redundancies or liquidations, which are on the increase, or cruel market circumstance. The core social welfare rates, including jobseeker's, are only increasing by €10 per week in this Bill. I think of the struggling young person already burdened by the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis and rising energy bills now finding themselves unemployed or put on reduced hours in hospitality or retail. How far is €10 going to go for them? Certainly not far enough to keep them out of poverty or deprivation or to provide some basic dignity. Why do we think unemployed and underemployed people should be forced to live below the poverty line? There seems to be a determination in the approach of this Government and, indeed, preceding Governments to only deal in increments. It is an over-reliance on minimal indexing and top-ups if you are lucky and there happens to be an election in a given year, with more generous and cynical splurging. There is always a failure to see the bigger picture, the need for real structural change and a bold vision when it comes to social and economic policy. In the Social Democrats, we think differently. We understand the vast majority of people on jobseeker's are using their entitlements to these benefits for a short period and will spend their whole lives contributing to the economy and this country, and while they spend this difficult time availing of their just entitlements, they deserve to live with dignity. That is why our increase to the core rates was 50% higher than the Government's and why, as we stated clearly, such an increase would represent a commitment to moving towards core social welfare rates being pegged to the minimum essential living standard. That has to be the goal for our welfare system. I know the Minister shares that particular goal. It would mark a fundamental departure from incrementalism and a shift in the way we treat unemployment and think about our workforce, both employed and unemployed, as essential and productive human capital and, ultimately, as human beings deserving dignity. When I am out meeting people door to door around Dublin, the most difficult situations I encounter are the individuals and families experiencing deprivation as a result of how our Government and society treat people and children with disabilities and illness. Parents are at their wits' end and people with disabilities are seemingly permanently socially excluded by the Government. There was no courage in this Government's Bill to stand up for people with disabilities. As the Disability Federation of Ireland said, people with disabilities will be €1,200 worse off a year next year as a result of this budget. Instead of introducing a cost-of-disability payment worth over €1,000 a year to soften the difficulties, increasing the fuel allowance more to keep up with energy cost inflation, giving relief on energy costs or properly increasing the disability allowance, the Government chose to leave people with disabilities and their families behind. That is not even to mention the means testing. The Social Democrats had the courage. We provided for that cost-of-disability payment and ensured the disability allowance and benefit caught up by significantly surpassing inflation. We provided for relief on energy bills and even for the too-long delayed reinstatement and reform of the motorised transport grant and mobility allowance, which went completely unmentioned in this budget despite the promises of the past two years. On the issue of disabilities, I also raise the serious anomaly of how the increase in the wage subsidy scheme is applied, as we heard from Rehab Enterprises, which was alarmed to find that the announced €1.20 increase in the scheme would result in just 55 cent for it. The scheme, if implemented efficiently, is a very targeted economical way of supporting people with disabilities in employment and would allow us to address our embarrassingly low rate of employment of people with disabilities compared with OECD peer countries. We cannot penalise the employers committed to employing more people with disabilities on a sliding scale like this. One cannot mention the difficulty of disabilities without also mentioning some of the best of us in our Republic - the carers who do monumental work on behalf of the State to care for some of the most vulnerable in our society. The Government had a choice in this budget to firmly find itself on the side of carers, to support and advocate for them and end the gross unfairness of a system that treats them so poorly. Instead, it mostly ignored and dismissed them, taking its cue from a then Taoiseach in Kanturk. As a new TD, it is quite eye-opening to see the level of political commitment in this Chamber and have the experience of sitting here a few weeks ago listening to voices from every party and none speak in support of the Social Democrats motion to abolish the means test, for the Minister to say he would not oppose it and, just a few days later when it came time for Members and parties to deliver their budget proposals, it was noticeably missing. Thanks to the work of Family Carers Ireland, we know that carers are disproportionately affected by social and financial hardship, face increased isolation, stress and difficulty in balancing caring responsibilities with paid employment. Again, a €10 increase in carer's allowance will barely keep the lights on. Furthermore, changes to thresholds for means tests only make weak efforts towards proper recognition of all carers' work. By the Minister's own estimates, he chose to purposefully exclude 30% of carers from carer's allowance. Tens of thousands of people who care for the most vulnerable in our society found no back-up from this Government and will be left wanting. The Social Democrats had a different approach. We put forward a fully costed plan to abolish the means test, bringing those tens of thousands of carers into the social protection system to honour their work for the hard work that it is. Furthermore, we proposed a €15 a week increase to the carer's allowance and carer's benefit - 50% more than the Government - and an increase to the carer's support grant often used for respite to €2,150 per year. The Social Democrats have always been and will always be on the side of those who care in our society and we will not be found wanting. It is also worth noting how the Government's budget supports the other big vulnerable part of our population, namely, the 800.000 people who are reliant on State pensions. It is the great success of the welfare state that we have taken care of our elderly and older people but I fear this Government has chosen to turn its back on too many of them facing the worst poverty with a €10 increase in pensions, when grocery bill increases far surpass that and a fuel allowance increase of €5 when electricity and gas prices surge to wipe out hard earned savings. There is no relief on energy bills. What well-minded person in our Republic would see an elderly person cold in their home this winter? What Government worthy of its voters would abandon them as the seasons turn and the energy companies hike up their prices, when an election is not looming? The Social Democrats have a different vision. We sought a larger increase to the State pension in fuel allowance. We wanted to keep our elderly warm, well fed and nurtured. Along with energy credits targeting the bottom 40% of households, a huge proportion of which would be pensioners, and a large reduction in prescription costs, we sought to give those who have earned old age the financial room to live it to the full. At the other end of the age spectrum, the Government did very little for new parents, increasing parental benefits by €10 per week. By contrast, the Social Democrats proposed to increase parental benefits by €61 per week to €350 to better reflect the enormous costs of raising a child in modern Ireland. We proposed extending parental benefit to 13 weeks per parent, the largest extension proposed in the history of the State by any party. This means that under the Social Democrats, the amount of paid time off for parents would amount to a total of more than one year per child, which would represent a significant milestone in our social policy and how we think about childhood. Importantly, we also sought to include fostering in the State contributory pension. On this side of the House, we may sound a little like a broken record when it comes to the child poverty figures. It is something my party colleagues and I have been bringing up relentlessly since they were published in the summer. I have spoken about it many times and I have brought it up with the Taoiseach. My party leader brought up the figures again on "The Late Late Show" last week and we will not shut up about it. Those figures have shocked us. The amount of money in this country and child poverty has doubled in a year. That is a monumental failure, by any measure, for one of the richest countries in the world. What has been so frustrating about the Government's response is all the hot air, the tones of hushed concern and worry, including in the Minister's speech today. The Taoiseach even took to writing in a national newspaper in the lead-up to the budget to say that now is the time to tackle child poverty. What do we get? Tinkering around the edges of existing welfare payments, a continued emphasis on incrementalism and a total failure to grasp the enormity of the problem and the moral stain it represents for our society. There are in this Bill at least some increases in the income disregard for the working family payment, which I welcome, but there is no substantive proposal here which recognises the enormity of the problem. That is the theme of the parties in government in health, in housing and here in child poverty. The reason we in the Social Democrats have continued to bring up the child poverty issue again and again is because we saw those numbers and we were horrified by them. We understood what those children were facing and what too many families are facing. We understood what the PBO has since confirmed, which is that poverty levels will increase as a result of this Government's budget, as well as the failures in this Bill to address key factors driving child poverty. We understood all of that and responded accordingly. Crucially, we responded proportionately. Our alternative budget set out an €870 million package for tackling child poverty. That is more than double what the Government has set aside. We have completely restructured the approach to deliver a highly targeted, evidence-based policy that will obliterate the scourge of child poverty by integrating the child support payment into a modified working family payment. That is the only rational response - the only humane response - to this problem. It is quite difficult to see the Taoiseach declare this is the year to tackle child poverty and then mere days later, have his Government deliver such a weak policy response, the details of which we now see in this Bill. I am extremely conscious that behind all these facts and figures there are people who are reliant on the support of the State for their living and to combat rising costs. In particular, I am conscious that energy prices, grocery prices and the cost of housing have increased very significantly in recent years, far beyond generalised average rates of inflation that the Government tends to quote. Furthermore, auto-enrolment will have very significant effects on post-tax income for working lower-income households. I have severe reservations the current Government's policies do not keep up with inflation in these areas to ensure people are not worse off next year, when compared to this year or the year before. By contrast, the Social Democrats proposed in one budget, a strong suite of structural, social interventions in the lives of the most vulnerable; the most comprehensive suite of measures put forward by any major party in this Chamber. We promised we would abolish the means test for carers in one year. We proposed that in our alternative budget, one of the only major parties to do so. We promised we would introduce a cost of disabilities payment, again proposed in our budget. We promised we would introduce a second tier of child benefit - costed, proposed and fully funded. We promised we would extend the parent's benefit, suggesting the largest increase of any party and bringing total paid parent's leave to one year - over one year - per child and we funded it in our budget. We promised to increase parental benefits to €350 per week in our first budget. We were the only major party to suggest increasing funding for the hot school meals programme to make it more nutritious. We committed to eliminating consistent child poverty by 2030 in our manifesto - eliminate it, not reduce it. This Government, however, has set a target of 3% to 2030. To put that in context, that means the Government is aiming at the close of its term to leave over 30,000 children in consistent poverty. That is its stated, explicit aim. Words genuinely fail me to articulate the callousness of such a goal. Rather than giving tax breaks to foreign shareholders, we in the Social Democrats sought to take a higher proportion of their huge profits. Rather than giving gambling companies, banks and commercial property a free ride, we said they should contribute more. We articulated a vision for a Republic that, crucially, lives up to its name. It is often the accusation against my party that we are not serious about governing. Well, here is your proof that we are, making the "hard decisions" to tax banks more so we can protect pensioners from the cold. I would even go so far as to say we are more serious about governing, about reshaping our country for the better, than this current Government. We promised the electorate major change in the general election a mere 11 months ago and in our first alternative budget, we articulated how we would make many of these structural changes within the first year. Notably, we have proposed a fully funded abolition of the means test for carers. We honoured a commitment in the programme for Government that the Minister did not deliver. It is my view and the view of my party that a society will and should be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable, who it stands up for and how it includes rather than excludes. In this, every party must pick a side - not a leaning, not an incrementalist approach but a deep structural commitment to transforming the State from one that has left too many people behind and instead, to one that lifts people up, supports them to thrive and enables every person - every person with a disability, every carer, every parent, every child and every older person - to reach their full potential. That is who the Social Democrats are, that is who I am and that is who the Government has shown through this Bill that it is not.

Sentiment score: 0.12

I meant a year. Sorry.

Sentiment score: -0.04