The average household will pay €2000 extra in bills this year. The government has made concessions because of fear of ‘people power’ style protests. But they did not go far enough.
ENERGY COSTS: You will only get €200 before Christmas and then €400 afterward. But this will be gobbled up by energy companies who are greedy for more profit.
The government should impose a maximum price order to reduce costs to pre-crisis levels. It should order the ESB to operate on a not-for-profit basis. It should nationalise the whole energy sector, including the Corrib Gas Field.
HOUSING: Tenants are getting a €500 tax credit. But that is the equivalent to just 7 days’ rent in Dublin and other cities. You don’t even get that if you are getting any other support, including HAP. You will not be able to avail of the credit if you earn below €20,000. In 2021, a CSO report found that 35% of tenants had an income below this. Not an extra penny will be spent on building social housing- even though we are facing a crisis over evictions and rent hikes.
We need rent controls and a provision to reduce rents to a quarter of the average income.
TAX CUTS: This government has done nothing for low and medium-income workers who earn less than €35,000. They are paying a higher effective tax rate than they were in 2008!
Tax cuts for PAYE workers are welcome but they are skewed to the better off. Someone earning €135,000 will be better off by €830 while two-thirds of earners will gain less than €200 a year.
There is no windfall tax on energy profits. Foreign executives will still be able to cut their tax bill on earnings up to €1 million by 30 percent- and write off private school fees.
We should tax the rich to fund support for workers.
SOCIAL WELFARE: If you are a pensioner or receive social welfare you are getting a miserly €12 extra a week- which is well below the rate of inflation. The governments want to hold back €6 billion. But we are in an emergency today. Why won’t they release it now to help us?
Use the rainy day fund to protect the vulnerable
CLIMATE CHANGE: You would be hard-pressed to find anything substantially new on climate action in this budget despite the urgent need for radical action. The target of 37,000 retrofits is far too low. We now need to be doing over 50,000 retrofits a year to meet the target of 500,000 by 2030.
The retention of the 20% transport fare deduction does not go far enough. We need free, frequent public transport now.
Tax the big polluters to fund action on climate change
GET THEM OUT
Fianna Fail Fine Gael and the Greens are out of touch. They prefer to protect vulture funds, bankers, and corporations than help people.
We need ‘people power’ style protests to get system change to give us price controls, rent reductions, and solutions to the housing crisis. We did it on the water charges – we can do it again.