Financial Resolution No. 8: General (Resumed)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on budget 2027. Across my constituency of Dublin Mid-West, I hear about the pressures families face every day, whether it is heating their homes, filling their cars, paying for childcare or simply keeping on top of bills. People are working hard, they are raising their families and they are doing their best to get ahead. They rightly expect the Government to recognise those pressures and respond in a practical way. That is what this budget does. We are helping people keep more of their hard-earned money through income tax changes, we are increasing the minimum wage and we are supporting working families. We are reducing the average maximum childcare cost from €750 per month to €550 per month. We are helping families with the cost of heating their homes and filling up at the petrol pump. We are also increasing the living alone allowance, fuel allowance and pension and providing additional support for carers and people receiving social welfare payments, helping their money go that bit further. Alongside this, the Government is helping people who are looking to buy their own home. We are helping first-time buyers. We are supporting renters. We are also investing in home support for older people. I am also delighted that Dublin Mid-West has secured a new Solace cafe, which will provide free out-of-hours mental health support in our community. I have worked closely with local advocate, Emma Griffin, who has campaigned tirelessly for this service and I am delighted that she has helped secure it for our community. These are practical measures to make everyday life more affordable and easier. As Minister of State with responsibility for disability, I particularly welcome the new permanent €500 cost-of-disability payment. I regularly meet disabled people and families who tell me about the additional costs that come with living with a disability, whether that is heating, transport, specialist equipment or simply everyday costs. This new payment is an important first step in helping with some of those additional costs, and it is something we can continue to build on. Turning to my own brief specifically, I welcome the continued investment in disability services in this budget. Budget 2027 provides a record €4.1 billion for disability services, which is more than double the investment in 2020. What matters is not just that investment, but what it translates into and looks like for people - for parents waiting for their children to receive therapies, for young people with disabilities who are leaving school wondering what comes next, for disabled adults who want greater independence, and for ageing parents who are worried about their adult sons and daughters. They are all at different stages of life, but they all have the same need, namely, the right supports at the right time. We are investing in 150 additional children's disability network team, CDNT, staff and providing €20 million for additional assessments through our targeted assessments of need waiting list initiative. We are also expanding day services, personal assistant and home support hours and investing in more respite and residential places. On residential places, I know how important it is for ageing parents to have greater certainty about what the future holds for their adult sons and daughters, and we will continue to work with families to plan better for future needs and ensure their concerns are reflected in how we develop both services and policies. I apologise, as I am out of time. We are expanding our community neurorehabilitation services as well and we will be bringing into new teams. I hope that makes a difference on the ground.

Tá bród orm mo bhuiséad don bhliain 2027 a chur i láthair don Dáil. It was 60 years ago last month that Donogh O'Malley announced free secondary education. At that stage, almost one in three children finished primary school and received no further education. Family finances determined how far they could go. O'Malley told his audience at the time of that announcement that "We will be judged by future generations on what we did for the children of our time." Many of us here, many of us in society and our children are beneficiaries of that decision. As more people completed secondary school, university became possible for the first time in homes where it had never before been considered. Successive generations built on that opportunity, developing what we now know as our knowledge economy, attracting investment, creating businesses and contributing to the pool of human knowledge. A stronger economy, of course, helped fund the public services on which we depend because the foundation for a strong society is a strong economy. That is the foundation upon which we build today. The purpose of my Department is to ensure that the ability of our people translates into opportunities for them and prosperity for the country. Our education system must deliver while ensuring that people can afford to participate in it. In this budget, I have secured €5.3 billion for my Department in 2027, made up of €4.4 billion in current expenditure and just under €1 billion in capital investment. Looking at students and assisting them always with the cost of college, I permanently reduced the student contribution fee by €500 last year, which was the first permanent reduction since free fees were introduced more than 30 years ago. A further €150 reduction is contained in this budget, which means that over two successive budgets, I have cut the fee by €650. That is a measure that benefits 110,000 higher education students. A further 16,000 apprentices benefit from a pro rata reduction in their registration fees. I have engaged with the Tánaiste and Minister of Finance to ensure that the disregard for income tax on third level fees is aligned with the new fee level and will continue to be aligned as we make progress on that number in the years to come. Supporting several children through college is a particular pressure point on families. I have listened intently and with a great sympathy to families who are putting multiple children through college at one time. It is a pinch point and I have introduced a targeted measure to help with that. I am introducing new and enhanced fee contribution grants for households with two or more students attending third level simultaneously. That will help over 11,000 students with a household income level up to €150,000 and will kick in from September next year. That is an historic high threshold for fee support. It means that 90% of Irish households now qualify for some form of Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, support. That level of availability is an unprecedented measure, but it is important to accommodate the squeezed middle. These are people who pay for everything and who play by the rules and sometimes feel they do not get a break. I am giving them a break with these measures. It means that, for example, a household with three children in college at one time can benefit by up to €1,950 in supports. That is almost €2,000 back in their pockets - real money in the pockets of real families, making a real impact to affordability. The SUSI maintenance grants are important for every student who relies upon them. All SUSI grants at every level will increase by 4.5% from January 2027, benefiting up to 54,000 students. For the special rate scheme, for example, the increase in grants will mean that those students will receive an extra €9.15 per week during term time. The rent tax credit is also increasing by €300 to €2,300 for a jointly assessed couple, which can be offset against the cost of accommodation. Of course, the SUSI special rate threshold also rises with social protection increases to keep up with the cost of living. The student assistance fund will incorporate a new placement scheme, helping students to manage the cost of placements where those are mandatory for their course. I am also introducing what I call the new student parent support scheme for students who have become parents during their college experience and find that challenging financially and in other ways. There are new measures in the student assistance fund to assist with that. There are multiple packages of supports for students to help tackle the cost of college. We must also look to providing skills for the future to ensure our economy and society have the capacity and resilience to respond to emerging technologies, emerging trends and, indeed, the patterns of demographics. In 1849, in what is now known as University College Cork, UCC, George Boole became the first professor of mathematics. He published what was called The Laws of Thought, developing Boolean algebra. He could not have known at the time that computers would be built upon his ideas, manufacturing the technology and the digital world we enjoy today, starting out from those foundations in Cork. The world's digital foundations emanated from that study and we are now laying the foundations for the generations whose working lives will be shaped by artificial intelligence, AI. Last year, I set an ambitious target to upskill 1 million people. Budget 2027 provides an extra €150 million towards that ambition. A new package of levers under the National Training Fund will allow us to strengthen skills resilience and support adaption to AI as we move towards a digital world. People need the skills, confidence and training to be able to use those technologies effectively. We already have a website at aiready.ie that offers free and accessible AI learning for individuals and businesses right across the learning spectrum, that is, sole traders, farmers, silver surfers and young folk alike. People are availing of that opportunity. The next phase will build upon that foundation on a much larger scale. It will target people in occupations that are being affected by AI and will find opportunities for people to upskill to take advantage of this transformative technology. To achieve our national missions as a Government, such as building houses at scale, building infrastructure, building our energy grid and building our metro, DART+ and all that goes with that, we will need skills, tradespeople and construction workers. The apprenticeship budget is now up to €446 million, which is a new high. We are seeing apprenticeship registrations continue to climb towards the programme for Government target of 12,500. Those are the fundamental and critical skills that Ireland needs to build out our future infrastructure and to meet our future housing need. Among other things, we are doubling aircraft mechanic training capacity and for the first time ever - this has been awaited for 15 years but we are doing it this year - we are putting in a new summer training model from 2027 onwards to allow aircraft mechanics to be trained in the summer, which is their quiet time. While the planes are in the air, they can do their training. We are reforming the apprenticeship system in line with demand and emerging best practice. On the research side, it is absolutely critical that we continue to nurture the knowledge economy, to create intellectual property and to create ideas because ideas are the engine room for the economy and all progress that flows from it. The national development plan allocates €4.55 billion to my Department. This includes over €2 billion for the research and innovation space. INSPIRE, the national research blueprint, has an envelope of €750 million, which will be spent over this year with the first round of awards to beneficiaries imminent. We are working on AI through things like the AI Factory Antenna and the national supercomputer, CASPIr. That work is also due to come on stream in the coming months. At over 15 petaflops, the national supercomputer will be 20 times more powerful than its predecessor. Research Ireland will continue to invest over €300 million in competitive research in the year ahead. This includes seven new Rinn centres in the areas of advanced therapies, artificial intelligence, energy, medical devices, pharma and biopharma, quantum and semiconductors. On the tax side, the research and development tax credit is being expanded. This is being leveraged to enable universities and SMEs to contribute by doing contract research. This is a new opportunity for collaboration and a new revenue stream for universities and small businesses. O'Malley helped a generation to go further in education than their parents could have dreamed of. Boole showed how research could shape lives and society far beyond its times. We are taking up those foundations. In my ministry, it is an honour and privilege to serve them and to drive Ireland forward.

I welcome budget 2027 and the practical difference it will make to families, workers and communities across the country. This is a budget of over €125 billion that will provide support for households and businesses while investing in the public services and infrastructure a growing population needs. It will help with the pressures people face today while preparing Ireland for the challenges of tomorrow. It supports household incomes, reduces childcare costs and strengthens supports for the people who need them most. It also invests in housing, healthcare, education and transport. As Minister of State with responsibility for public procurement, digitalisation and e-government, my focus is on ensuring that this investment delivers value for money and that our public services are equipped to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing technological environment. Achieving these aims cannot simply be about spending more. It is about spending better and doing things better, ensuring that public services are responsive, efficient and capable of delivering for citizens over the longer term. The public spending efficiency task force announced in this budget will help us to do exactly that. Its purpose is to examine public spending and recommend actions to deliver better value for money for taxpayers while ultimately supporting better public services. The investment in skills and preparation for technological change is also particularly welcome. We are entering an era of rapid technological change, with artificial intelligence presenting enormous opportunities to improve how we work, automate routine administration and enhance service delivery. However, with those opportunities come responsibilities. AI must be developed and deployed responsibly, ethically and with public trust at its centre. We must ensure that citizens' data is protected and secure while making sure that the benefits of new technology are felt across our public services and wider economy. I am also delighted to see investment in surgical hubs, including in Sligo, and further support for our League of Ireland academies. Budget 2027 gives us the resources to make further progress. Our responsibility now is to translate that investment into services that work better, infrastructure that supports growth and improvements that are felt in communities throughout Ireland. With €125.6 billion being invested in 2027, we have a responsibility to ensure that every euro is used purposefully and delivers the greatest possible benefit for the people we serve.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach as an seans caint ar an mbuiséad inniu. What do we say about the budget? What have we heard the Government present it as? It has been presented as a workers' budget and a budget that will make work pay. I wish that was the case. As a result of additional costs arising from what Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and their Independent colleagues have done, 1.5 million workers are now worse off. There is no help coming in relation to food. There is nothing in relation to fuel other than what has already been done. On energy and rent, it is all too minimal. What are we looking at? We are talking about people in that bracket at the lowest end. What are they going to get? They will get €250, €5 a week. That is what they are looking at while higher earners could be getting up to three times more. We are talking about something that could be wiped out with one bad bill. It is the washing machine not working or the timing belt snapping or nearly snapping, as happened to me this week. Most people in here are obviously in far better circumstances than many of the people out there we are talking about. We are doing this as public sector workers are once again having to work to rule and strike. We are talking about teachers, SNAs, nurses and the people who keep this place open. We do not quite know what is going to happen on Wednesday but I know a considerable number of people would have great difficulty in crossing a picket. Those we require to help us do our work believe they have not been adequately looked after. That is a fact. I would like to think there will be an intervention because it is absolutely necessary. Many people, from every party, come in here and talk about the cost-of-living crisis, saying that supports are required. We are seeing it again. We all know the housing crisis is the greatest crisis facing a number of people, including young people and older people. Nobody has to go on daft.ie. We know the prices. In my own hometown, you are looking at €1,400 or €1,500 a month for a two or three-bedroom house. I do not know how people do it. What did renters get? They got an extra €150, a drop in the ocean when we consider those rents. What are we talking about? We are talking about big developers getting hundreds of millions in tax breaks again while not paying one cent in tax on their rental income. We are talking about the vultures. It is hard to believe. The Government could have followed Sinn Féin's advice. Our proposal would have brought in €335 million by making sure those vulture funds paid an adequate amount of tax. What could that revenue have delivered? It could have delivered childcare for €10 a day. We do not have that, however. We have talk of a €550 cap. A huge number of people are trying to find out whether they can avail of this €550 a month childcare. There is no clarity on who can actually avail of it. We would need that. We have all heard that students have to pay €350 more in fees today than when the promise was first made to abolish them. I cannot see that as anything other than abject failure. On home heating oil, we all thought something was going to happen. I do not know how many Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael backbenchers spoke about it, even the last time, when supports were delivered in relation to fuel at the pumps. I do not know how many of them said that something was surely going to be done about home heating oil. We know that people are paying €1,500 or €1,600, and sometimes even more, for a 1,000 litre fill. We are talking about prices that have gone through the roof, possibly up by €700 from last year. What is the Government talking about? It is talking about a slight reduction of €43 on a fill when it could have provided some element of mitigation, as in our proposal, which at least would have taken €183 off a fill. Is that all we would like to do? No. That is accepting that all of this has occurred because of the madness of Donald Trump and genocidal Israel and their actions in Iran, but the fact is that the Irish Government's job is to look after its people and mitigate. We talk about the extra €5 in relation to the fuel allowance. The fact is that people are going to end up €12 worse off because we are talking about four fewer payment weeks than last year. People would have got €1,216 last year and now they will get €1,204 while we are talking about an extra €5 per week at a time when people cannot afford to pay their gas and electricity bills. There was much talk about people with disabilities. The fact is that there was a whole pile of consultation. We all spoke about the fact that there should have been a cost-of-disability payment this year. It did not happen. What did we get? We got a €500 payment, which works out at less than €10 a week. We have heard from the Disability Federation of Ireland. We have actually heard from multiple advocacy groups that are not happy in any way, shape or form. I welcome the fact that we at least have a cost-of-disability payment, but it is an abject failure given the costs faced by those with disabilities. I thought there was huge acceptance in relation to this across the Chamber, but unfortunately we are not seeing the movement that needs to be made. I will quickly go into Sinn Féin's proposals. We would cut the USC for every worker on the first €40,000 they earn. That would have helped those at the lowest end. We would cut energy costs by removing the carbon tax from home heating oil. One hundred and eighty-three euro would be saved on a fill of home heating oil. We would reintroduce energy credits at the rate of €400 and cut food costs by introducing an everyday essentials card worth €500 for 1 million households. That reflects the depth of the problem. That is what we need to do. We would cut fuel costs by scrapping all planned carbon tax increases and delivering a further 10 cent reduction per litre at the pumps for petrol and diesel. We would cut student fees by half and abolish them entirely by September next year, because that is the sort of proposal we need. That is what people need, not the Government saying it is going to do it but cannot do everything in a single budget. The fact is that the Government has not done enough. There is an abject failure to deliver for people out there who are under severe pressure. I would like to think there would be some kickback from the Minister's own party, Fianna Fáil and the Independents on what was delivered by the Government because I have yet to hear anybody who thought this was good enough. On the cost-of-disability payment, we have all heard what Tony Murray of Before We Die has said. We are dealing with the legacy that we did not actually know the numbers of those with intellectual disabilities who needed supports. I accept there is work being done on that, but in some cases it is very late. We really need to get to grips with that and with the respite services that are required. Now that I have an opportunity, I am going to ask the Minister and everybody else to convey a message. My party leader, alongside many others in this Chamber, has sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Britain, Mr. Andy Burnham, on the fact that he needs to take action and the fact that the threat of a sectarian march on the Garvaghy Road is not okay. A ridiculous decision was taken by the Parades Commission and we need the British Government to act. I am utterly disappointed with what the Irish Government is saying at the minute. What I need it to do is tell the British Government that it is not okay for a sectarian march to be foisted on people on the Garvaghy Road who have been through far too much. I ask that that message be brought back.

I have not spoken to one single person or advocacy group who is happy with this budget. I woke up this morning to a WhatsApp text sent to me by a very popular businessman in my constituency, Wicklow-Wexford: As a married couple that work 60 hours plus each a week just to get by in this shambles of a country. I would really like if you could bring it to the goverment that while the rest of us barely get by, they live on wages that are off the scale. So is there not room in their budget that they could all take a 20% pay cut and at least show the rest of us that they understand we are all under pressure and they are trying to give a little back rather than it being take take take and sit and smirk at the people that get to spend little or no time with their familes because we can’t afford not to be in work. He went on: This part is hard for me to say but I looked at my life insurance policy the other day and thought I wonder would it be better if I was gone at least my family would have no mortgage and a big lump sum in the bank. This is not how a hard-working person should be thinking but I’m sure I am not alone. Why should someone that works round the clock their whole life feel that having to die is the only way to provide for the family’s future. While the 2 people supposed to be the leaders of the country sit and smirk in the dail and think its ok because theyre ok. Well please let them know the rest of us are not ok. It did not have to be this way. In a State with enormous wealth and huge surpluses, there could have been a budget to make life affordable. Instead, it is the second Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael budget that makes workers less well off. Teachers – I was one myself for 34 years – nurses and the very staff who work in this building looking after us here have been forced to go on strike. Is that the level of respect we hold for these public servants? Almost nothing was done for renters in the budget, while big developers once again get hundreds of millions in tax breaks. There is only a €43 cut in home heating oil despite a cost increase of €700. The fuel allowance is cut in real terms despite the prices of electricity and gas going up and up. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are to spend a lot of money through the budget but did not fix the things that are making Ireland so unaffordable. Any measure that puts money back in people's pockets is very welcome, of course, but after years of record tax receipts, families are entitled to ask a couple of simple questions. Why is it so expensive to live in Ireland? Why can working people not afford a home or a roof over their heads? Why are renters paying record rents? Why are patients waiting so long to access basic healthcare or even to see a GP, something that should be normal in any country? Why are students still being charged €2,350 to go to college? Probably the saddest thing of all for me is the survey that came out recently from the National Youth Council of Ireland. Why did seven out of ten young people respond to it saying that they did not see a future for themselves in Ireland, the land of their birth? They felt that they would never be able to live here, live an independent life and have a home of their own. To me, that says that the State has completely failed. It has failed if it cannot provide a future for its young people, who should be the future of this country. We proposed sensible measures as we always do, which have been fully costed by the Department of Finance. I will reiterate them. We would cut the USC for every worker on the first €40,000 they earn. That would help workers and would not leave 1.5 million workers behind. We would cut energy costs by removing carbon tax from home heating oil. This would have saved people €183 on a full fill of home heating oil. We would reintroduce energy credits at a rate of €400; cut food costs by introducing an everyday essentials card, worth €500 for 1 million households; cut fuel costs by scrapping all planned carbon tax increases; deliver a further 10 cent reduction per litre at the pumps for petrol and diesel; cut student fees by half and abolish fees entirely by September next year; introduce a new tier of child benefit rates that would help 400,000 children; help renters by doubling the renter's tax credit to €2,000; call for a €25 increase to disability payment from 1 January; and give €300 to those in residential care and outside of it to address the cost of disability.

Lastly, we would provide €200 a month for childcare. Unfortunately, I am out of time.

Ireland enters 2027 from a position of real economic strength, with full employment, a growing economy and the Government forecasting a surplus of €9 billion next year. However, underneath those headline figures, there is a vulnerability in our public finances we cannot ignore, and I was glad to see this referenced on budget day. In 2017, expenditure was €58 billion. Budget 2027 provides for €125.6 billion, more than doubling the level in a decade. As our population and economy grow, we need to spend more, but we have to pay attention to our tax base. In 2025, almost 90% of Exchequer tax receipts came from three taxes: income tax, VAT and corporation tax. Within corporation tax itself, the concentration intensifies. In 2024, just three corporate groups accounted for 46% of the entire corporation tax take, and the top ten corporate groups accounted for 59% of corporation tax receipts in 2024, compared with 32% in 2008. I agree that we should not continue to increase permanent expenditure while the revenues funding it become more concentrated. Therefore, I welcome the decision to moderate current expenditure growth to 6%. The time to protect the public finances from a downturn is not if or when it arrives; it is when the economy is strong. The lesson from the past is that we should not be afraid to invest in housing, infrastructure, reserves for the future and our resilience, therefore reducing our liabilities and exposure to risk. Of course, being responsible with the public finances does not mean standing still. The budget made some important choices about supporting work, families and how people build financial security. The income tax changes mean workers keep more of what they earn, with the higher-rate threshold moving to €46,500 and the main tax credits increasing by €125. Childcare supports families who work and women returning to the workplace and driving our economy forward. According to the Department of children, the vast majority of families use 45 hours or fewer of childcare. The Government is bringing their maximum monthly cost down from €735 to €550 through a mix of core funding caps and an increase in universal national childcare subsidies for children up to senior infants. This amounts to a saving of approximately €2,220 per year. However, some families currently require 50 hours or more of childcare per week and I have received questions about their savings. These are my calculations and the Minister of State might confirm them. Core funding services for 50 hours or more are currently capped at €336 per week. With subsidies, this brings down what parents pay to roughly €240 per week or €960 per month. From September 2027, the cap will be lowered to €300 per week, which with the increase in subsidies, brings what parents pay down to €187.50 per week or €750 per month. This is a saving of approximately €2,500 per year, if my calculations are correct. They are significant savings for a family, so I hope that they can be communicated to them. I welcome the increase in the childminding tax relief. We want childminders to feel seen and heard by the Government as the sector is regulated. The income-assessed subsidies do not get enough attention in general. If a household has a reckonable income of €68,000 or lower, it gets access to income-assessed subsidies. This is €5.10 per hour for families with an income threshold of €38,500 or lower. All of this is real money back into family budgets and another significant step forward towards the commitment to €200 per month for childcare. I commend the Tánaiste on his vision and leadership in initiating and delivering a new investment account model for Ireland. Ireland has a strong savings culture but it has lacked an investment culture. The €50,000 tax-free threshold and €12,000 annual contribution limit can help to change this, particularly when combined with the national financial literacy strategy. We should be giving people the tools to understand investment, participate in it and build wealth over the long term. I welcome the Tánaiste's further commitment to continue to simplify the taxation of retail investment in Ireland. I have been a long-standing advocate for the need to abolish the outdated deemed-disposal rule, particularly on existing ETF products, and I hope this can be achieved during the lifetime of the Government. As part of the upcoming finance Bill, I ask the Government to legislate for a timeline for the phase-out of deemed disposal, to give clarity and confidence to potential ETF investors and people who are already investing in Ireland's world-leading ETF industry. I want us to keep building on the steps taken in this budget. I want an economy where work is rewarded, where families are given more breathing room and where ordinary people are given a genuine opportunity not just to save but to build wealth and to get ahead. I also want to keep the protection of our finances today and tomorrow firmly on the agenda.

According to the Tánaiste, this was supposed to be the budget for "people who get up early in the morning." We could not believe that the Tánaiste resurrected that torturous, horrible, triggering phrase, which was first iterated by Leo Varadkar somewhere nine years ago when he was looking to be leader of Fine Gael. This was supposed to be a budget also for workers. It was a budget for nobody. Nobody won from this budget. No worker has contacted me or my colleagues to say that they feel they will get any benefit from this budget. To those people who said Fine Gael was tired and lacking energy, the Tánaiste obviously had it right in 2024 when he said we had not seen anything yet. The problem with the slogan of who gets up early in the morning is that those people are never defined. The new gardaí who have to get up early in the morning will not get any real help from this budget. Neither will the average nurse in Beaumont Hospital who will be on the picket line next week seeking the Government merely to come to the table to discuss pay talks. Neither will the taxi driver who gets up in the middle of the night to do morning runs to the airport. The newest member of our Defence Forces, who are ready at a moment's notice to come to the aid of this country when it is in such distress, feels nothing from this budget. What have we heard from the Government over the last two days? What is the big selling point in this budget? It is a new investment account. This is not an investment account. This is a speculator's account for people to speculate on stocks, bonds and ETFs. All of this thing is going through Instagram now and is very popular in everyone's feed. Every financial expert who has been on the radio or TV over the last couple of days has said this is a nonsense. What we should be advising people to do is invest in their pensions or invest in the State bonds and State savings accounts that already exist, but no, this is an attitude of "greed is good." The route of Fine Gael is to get people to speculate on the stock market and on bonds. It is an absolute disgrace but this speaks to the core of what Fine Gael is about. It is also incredible that the Government has stated that the €20 million it is investing in help to buy will help people. It will not help anybody in my constituency of Dublin Fingal East, where the thresholds for new homes are above the half a million euro to qualify for help to buy. It is absolutely no help whatsoever. Again, this shows how out of touch the Government is on housing and homelessness, which did not get one mention in the 90-minute speeches from both Ministers. Homelessness is the biggest crisis facing our country today. The root of so much insecurity and poverty in this country did not warrant one mention from the Ministers for Finance or public expenditure and reform. That is absolutely disgraceful. Even more incredible, this budget contained no energy credits or windfall tax on energy companies, which the Labour Party proposed. It has nothing to help families who have seen their food shop cost spike year on year, despite the proposals the Labour Party offered. There is no mention of the apartment and duplex defects remediation scheme. There is no commitment for households with solar panels which sell back to the grid that they will be able to continue to do so indefinitely, as they were enticed to do as early adopters of solar panels many years ago. Many did so without Government assistance, and now Government is aiding the ESB in taking that pretty modest inducement back. Public sector workers and unions are chided by the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and are told to match his intent and call off industrial action. The Minister has never been part of a workforce, bar being a politician. He does not understand what it is to be an ordinary worker. He has no sense of what it is to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a worker and not be able to make ends meet at the end of the week. He is lambasting those workers and their representatives for not matching his intent. This just shows how disconnected he and this Government are from ordinary workers in this country. The reality is that this budget tinkers around the edges. It tries to do a lot and does absolutely nothing. For the Defence Forces, funding has been given for 400 new permanent roles to bring their strength up to 8,300, yet we are not even meeting our existing Defence Forces goals. I spoke on Tuesday night about the Government's need to be honest. That related to public health policy for cigarettes and taxation thereon. Our finance spokesperson said the truest thing about this Government, which is that it is dishonest in how it projects the finances of this country and how this budget is going to help ordinary workers.

Budget 2027 was presented to the country as a moment of opportunity; one where unprecedented resources, record surpluses and the strongest fiscal position in the history of the State could finally be marshalled to confront the deep, grinding problems that shape the daily lives of our people. Yet when the dust settled, what we were left with was profoundly under whelming, not because the figures were small or the announcements were quiet, but because the scale of ambition in this budget fell so far short of the scale that was needed. Let us be honest with ourselves: this country is not a poor country. We are not a country scraping by. We are a country with enormous capacity, both economic and social, to transform the lives of our citizens. Budget 2027 showed once again that having resources is not the same as using them wisely, and having surpluses is not the same as having vision. The truth is simple: this budget, as my colleague Deputy Smith has said, tinkers around the edges of problems that require structural, generational change. It papers over the cracks that have become chasms. It offers gestures where what is needed is courage. It delivers incrementalism at a moment when incrementalism is indistinguishable from failure. We know we cannot solve every difficulty in one budget - no responsible person expects that - but people expect and deserve a budget that confronts the root causes of the distress so many are enduring. They expect a budget that recognises the day-to-day struggles of ordinary people are not unimportant, impartial or hypothetical policy changes but lived realities. It is the child waiting years for therapies, the family crushed by housing costs, the worker who cannot access mental health support and the older person who cannot get a homecare package. These are not issues that can be managed or mitigated with small adjustments; they require fundamental change. However, instead of that change, we saw choices that reveal a deeper truth about the political philosophy driving this Government. One of the clearest examples of this was the 3% cut to capital gains tax. At a time when families are drowning in cost-of-living pressures, when public servants and services are stretched to breaking point and when waiting lists define the experience of disability, mental health and primary care, the Government chose to direct resources towards those who have already gained and those who already hold assets, wealth and advantage, to the tune of €200 million. This is not accidental or incidental; it is ideological. It is the hallmark of a right-wing style of Government that believes prosperity trickles down, a Government that believes supporting those at the top somehow lifts those at the bottom and a Government that believes the market will solve what the State refuses to confront but the lived experience of our people tells a different story. Prosperity does not trickle down, opportunity does not trickle down, security does not trickle down. What trickles down are the consequences of political choices, and in this case, the consequences are borne by those who have the least. We see this clearly in our public services. In February, I asked a parliamentary question, as I did earlier today, about the head psychologist position in Wexford primary psychology service for children and adolescents. As that post has remained unfilled since September 2025, the waiting list for children in Wexford is now three years. That is three years for a child to access primary care psychology, three years during the most formative period of their lives and three years of lost potential, lost support and lost trust in the system that claims to care. I recently worked with a family of a child who, in a few weeks' time, will receive the speech and language appointment her family sought six and half years ago. Budget 2027 goes nowhere near fixing this. It does not even begin to start fixing it. It does not address the structural staffing shortages, recruitment failures, retention crisis or chronic under-investment that has hollowed out our mental health services for decades. It offers more of the same - more pilots and reviews we heard mentioned numerous times, and more announcements while families continue to wait. The Irish people deserve better. A budget is not just a financial document; it is a moral document. It tells the country who and what matters. Budget 2027, despite the historic resources available, fails to meet that moment.