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The Budget will be “hopelessly inadequate” when it comes to dealing with the crises in the cost of living, housing and health, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd-Barrett has claimed.
Speaking ahead of the Budget he described expected €5 increases in welfare payments and the State pension as “insulting” and predicted that there will be nothing announced to address the rental crisis.
He said the €1.5 billion the Government will use for discretionary spending is “billions short” of what is needed.
Mr Boyd-Barrett argued that the Government has the option of increasing taxes on the profits of corporations and the wealth of the “super rich” and this would have “given us the billions we need... to give the poorest and most vulnerable a real break”.
He claimed: “this is a pathetic, hopelessly inadequate Budget of crumbs that is going to leave people bitterly disappointed.”
His party colleague Paul Murphy claimed the Government is “is patting themselves on the back with what is becoming the national fiver day.”
He said that this increase for people on welfare payments and the State pension is “less than the rate of inflation” and “it means in real terms people’s incomes are being cut... they’ll be driven into further crisis.”
Solidarity TD Mick Barry claimed that after the Budget: “The rich will stay rich, the poor will stay poor and many, many people will freeze in their homes this winter. And some of them will die.”