Unfair, unjust Budget fails the vulnerable, damages the economy

The full text of Social Justice Ireland's Analysis and Critique of Budget 2010 is available here
The unfair and breathtakingly unjust decisions made in Budget 2010 will damage Ireland’s economic development and social development.
This Budget is anti-family, anti-poor and anti-children. Government chose to reduce the income going to large numbers of Ireland’s poorest people while wasting money on a useless scrappage scheme that will have no significant impact on emissions but will see most of the money going to overseas manufactures.
In what appears to be an ideologically fixated approach to Budget 2010 Government has placed its faith in the failed neo-liberal economic model which caused many if not most of the current economic problems not just in Ireland but across the world.

Unfair and unjust

• Poor people will take a bigger hit than those who are better off.
• Reducing the income of those who are very well off so that they now will just be well off is very different to reducing the income and services available to those already in poverty so that they will now be living in deeper poverty without the basics required to live life with dignity. Yet this is exactly what Government has done.
• People living in poverty (1 in seven of the total population, 18% of children) are being asked to endure greater deprivation. This is unjust and unfair.
• The Government’s arguments based on falling inflation are profoundly ill-informed. They fail to recognise the fact that costs for poorer people have risen in key areas of their expenditure during the past year.
• The failure to increase the tax-take significantly will mean that Ireland will continue to have one of the lowest total tax-takes in the EU.
• The failure to raise the total tax-take substantially towards the EU average is the main reason that Government does not have the income to protect the country’s social services or promote its economy.
• The introduction of a carbon tax is welcome but Government has failed to ensure that vulnerable people on low incomes or living in rural areas without access to public transport will not be big losers.
• Cuts in the budget for social housing and supports budget will make it more difficult for many people to keep a roof over their head.

Budget is bad for economic development

• The Budget totally fails to provide any credible employment package.
• The Budget contains no real economic stimulus package. While the retro-fitting programme is welcome, it is nowhere near the scale required to provide an effective stimulus.
• The car scrappage scheme will be of most benefit to foreign car manufacturers.
• A new unemployment trap has been created following changes on child benefit. Most low-income people will lose the welfare-related payment when they take up a job (as many do not access FIS).

Budget is bad for social development

• As a result of Budget 2010 services will be reduced at the very moment that demand is rising.
• Ireland’s social services infrastructure is being allowed to disintegrate just when it is needed most.
• Provision on the scale required was not made to develop the primary school infrastructure needed in the coming years for the huge increase in the young population.

Budget is anti-poor

• Those struggling to exist on an income lower than what is required to have a minimally adequate standard of living will now be further below that minimum and unable to afford the basics to live life with dignity.
• The failure to meet the target set for the ODA budget will damage the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

Budget is anti-family

• The Budget targeted households with children and reduced their income while leaving households with the same income but no children untouched by this income reduction.

Budget is anti-youth

• This Budget dramatically reduced the welfare rates for young people, failed to provide sufficient places in training and related programmes and then threatened them with even greater losses if they refused to take up an inappropriate programme.

Budget is anti-children

• Child benefit cuts reduce the already small allocation for children in Ireland.
• The Budget will increase the level of child poverty in Ireland - currently 18% - especially among the working poor.

Proposal to reform tax system welcome

• The Budget failed to eliminate many of the tax breaks available only to the better off as recommended by the Commission on Taxation. However, the commitment to reform the tax system in the coming year is very welcome.

Conclusion
Social Justice Ireland is deeply concerned that Government has introduced such an unfair and unjust budget which is bad for Ireland’s economic and social development.
Budget 2010 lacks vision. It fails to provide the leadership that Ireland needs at this difficult time. It also raises serious questions concerning competence.
Adjustments of €4bn were required to stabilise Ireland’s fiscal situation. Social Justice Ireland published detailed, costed proposals showing how such adjustments could be achieved without reducing welfare rates or harming the vulnerable.
Decisions taken in Budget 2010 mean that Ireland’s poor and vulnerable people are being condemned to deeper poverty which may well persist for a lengthy period of time while those who created many of the county's current problems are either being rewarded or ignored.
This Budget provides no pathway towards a credible, desirable future that Irish people can strive to attain.
Government’s rhetoric about protecting the vulnerable and promoting the economy is not matched by its decisions in Budget 2010.
All in all a depressing, unfair and unjust Budget. Far better options were available that would have protected the vulnerable and promoted the economy. Government chose instead to favour those who are better off over the most vulnerable.
A society is measured on how it treats its vulnerable people. Using that yardstick this Budget has failed all of Ireland’s people.