Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)

The treatment of education is summed up by the fact that, as the INTO has pointed out, more money has been allocated to the gimmick of smartphone pouches, to grab a cheap headline, than to increases in capitation for primary schools.

That is absolutely scandalous and demonstrates a lack of priority for young people. The Government refused to introduce a second tier of child benefit for the poorest children in the State as called for by all the major child welfare and child poverty organisations, including the Children Rights Alliance. There is a stingy €4 increase to the qualified child allowance for children under 12, €8 for children over 12 and no increase to monthly child benefit rates, doing nothing to address the rate of child poverty in this country with one in ten families reliant on food banks to survive.

There is some talk of celebrating the idea that new parents are getting a so-called baby boost of a payment of €420. I can tell from experience that that €420 will not go very far. What will go far for those who need it least is the tax benefit to be given to the richest 3% of households by cutting inheritance tax. Certainly there is a real baby boost to them, gaining a tax benefit of €21,450.

I will finish with the nothing that is here for the environment. We need a transformational amount of money to shift the whole nature of the economy to have a rapid just transition that improves people's lives, but there is almost nothing here. There is no substantial roll-out of renewable energy. We should be hearing today about new train lines across the country. We should be hearing today about new metro and new Luas services. We should be hearing about free public transport right across the board instead of the meagre increase for a very small number of children. There is nothing like that whatsoever.

The only glint of light in this budget that we have seen today is definite evidence for people that a general election is coming and is coming very soon. It is no accident that payments are due to be rolled out this month and in November. From what is happening today, it is pretty clear that we are facing an election in the next six, seven or eight weeks. That will be people's opportunity. I do not think they will be fooled by this budget. It will be their opportunity to end 100 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, to end 5,000 continuous days of Fine Gael in one form or another and to elect a left government.

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