Paul Murphy: Says Disabled People Left €1,400 Worse Off by Budget

it's quite an incredible display of cognitive dissonance here. I mean you go to the media and you tell them you're going to push money back in people's pockets then you come in here and you're asked on behalf of disabled people who are crying out for this you're asked to put money back in their pockets by a winter emergency measure a one-off payment and you just bat it away I mean these are the people you didn't engage with at all these are the people that you made poor not just a little bit poor you made them a lot poorer 1400 euros worse off as a consequence of the budget you cost the disability support grant a loss of 400 euros you cost the living alone allowance a cost of 200 euros you reduce the fuel allowance a loss of 160 euros you cut the October double payment a loss of 254 euros you cost the electricity credits another loss of 250 euros altogether over 1400 euros people euros taken from the pockets not put into the pockets taken from the pockets of disabled people and and yet then you you still think you can go to the public and say oh don't worry we're going to put money back in your people in people's pockets the excuse before the budget from your predecessor was to say we don't need cost-of-living payments because quote inflation has now returned to normal rates well we know now that that was a load of nonsense he's now in Washington he's on over six hundred thousand a year I'm sure he's not bothered by the cost of groceries but ordinary people here are left with the highest inflation in two years they're out preparing for Christmas and they're seeing the reality of still soaring grocery prices over 4% food price inflation 3.3% energy price inflation it's going to be a cold hard Christmas for a lot of people the cost of a thousand liters of home heating oil has shot up and yet a country with a massive budget surplus a rich country you had a budget that made everyone poorer except if you're fast food giant if you were a multinational corporation or if you were a developer but in particular it is the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest the bottom ten percent as a result of the withdrawal of one-off payments they had an income a decrease of four point four percent the next ten percent a loss of three point nine percent but then this particularly cruel approach to disabled people abandoning the promise to introduce a permanent cost of disability payment and then withdrawing the one-off payments they're not going to take this lying down there you're telling them no no everything's great we've actually improved disability services all the organizations are screaming at you saying we need an emergency winter cost of disability emergency payments they're going to be in front of the doll the Irish wheelchair Association Disability Federation of Ireland access for all together next Tuesday from 12 30 to 2 p.m. please don't continue to be Scrooge don't continue to be Grinch give this little back into people's pockets well firstly firstly I don't remember you welcoming budgets where we brought in cost of living measures before the election you're kind of you're kind of opining wishing we were brought in wishing you had the budgets of the last number of years I don't ever remember you supporting measures that we brought in in this house over the last several years to try and assist people at a time of extraordinarily high levels of inflation and you would also I'm sure acknowledge as you seek to slag Pascal who quite frankly I take his view on the economy more seriously than yours you seek to slag him for his views and call them nonsense and the reason the World Bank hired him because he knows a few things about economics and is really the first point you would surely acknowledge that what we'd like to see inflation for further that inflation both in Ireland and in the eurozone is at a much lower level than it was when those cost of living packages were brought in I mean the inflation was off the Richter scale for a period of time and it may be your position in fact in fairness to you I think it is you're quite clear about it that you want to have two annual budgets effectively a budget that runs from now to kind of Christmas and then another budget that runs next year we can't run the economy like that we just can't it's not sustainable we have to get back to an annual budget and that's what we said we were going to do and that's what we have done this year you talk about a cold winter and really I'm conscious that people look in on this from home and I want to talk to those people too I want them to know there are a number of measures in place to help people with energy poverty this winter if you are an older person perhaps living alone this week you will quite rightly have received a double payment in relation to your state pension you will receive the fuel allowance which is now up to over a thousand euro a year that fuel allowance due to go up again in the new year you'll see the household benefits package in terms of that cost coming off your energy bill worth I think over 400 euro during this period and we've reduced the VAT rate which other parties proposed allowing go back up including some thought the VAT is to go back up in April we didn't we've extended that for quite a number of years more but you make these snide comments deputy and I know we have different political views but you know all you care about is helping the multinationals did you see the Exchequer returns yesterday like what you want us to do send the jobs and the money back somewhere else we're very proud to be a government that is pro-enterprise and we're going to continue to pursue policies to keep jobs in Ireland to keep revenue in Ireland because that is helping to fund the country it's helping to provide so many employment opportunities including in your constituency so you're getting very close to the kind of ask to send them all away Brigade we need to continue to make sure we support policies in this country that attract the jobs because as many people in your constituency in mind they got in a car this morning and drove to work in one of those multinationals that you kind of just dismiss our support for as though it's irrelevant and then you also say your supports for developers like you like to call them developers because that's in your view a dirty word I like to call them people who build houses people who build houses in a housing emergency people who build it but no it's a serious point deputy I know you you know you can laugh and you can have your little ideological view of the world but we need to build we need to build we need to build apartments we need to build and all of the decisions we take are to protect jobs because that's how we keep people in employment it's how we also run the country from the funding public services and we also make sure that we can stimulate the building of houses and apartments in this country these are good things to do but I want people with a disability to know as I've directly said to Deputy Ocala unlike your comment we haven't abandoned anything work is underway in relation to a cost of disability payment and as recently as this week organizations with representing people with a disability didn't need to stand outside the gates they were in the department helping engage on this very payment Mr Murphy I brought a boundary from the Tonister to avoid to to to avoid the point Tonister will you can you yes or no question your budget made almost everybody in the country poor yes or no yes or no question your budget made those who were poorest they were affected the worst by the budget yes or no question your budget left disabled people substantially worse off they're all the answer to all of those is yes I'm interested in hearing you try to spin how the answer is no you ask what do I want you to do what I want you to do is that you have a substantial budget surplus and in that context you should not be making disabled people poor that was a mistake made in the budget you agree to it presumably and I am appealing to you in the days running up to Christmas to use the resources you have to reverse that decision do not make disabled people poor next year therefore do what they are asking of you and introduce an emergency one-off winter payment it's very very simple that's what I'm asking it's a political choice for you to do that or not to do that I don't know if you're suggesting doing that somehow all the jobs will flee the country is not the kind of scaremongering you're engaged with you can make a choice not to drive these people who are many of them living in deprivation who not to drive them further into poverty when we're a rich country when we we have a substantial budget surplus no the point I'm making is very clear you stand up when you make snide remarks about supporting multinationals or snide remarks about supporting developers I make the point that's about supporting jobs and building homes that's the difference but your ideology in ours and you're proud of that difference and I'm proud of it as well we have a different view in relation to this the multinational jobs in this country are important they help actually fund through income taxes and corporation taxes the running of this station it's a bloody good thing we have them we need to work to continue to make sure we attract investment into this country particularly at such a volatile time because you know how you make people poorer in the country you make people poorer by actually just continuing to go along on the hope that everything's grand and wake up one day and realize that actually the fiscal vulnerabilities that are in the paper that I published yesterday the Department of Finance have come to be realized we'd not planning we're not planning on opening the budget process again because we're delivering one annual budget within the context of the budget that we've delivered we have delivered a progressive budget the budget documentation shows that it is a progressive budget helping those most in need over those who have the most that's the budget that we ran that's the budgetary process progressive budgets that we continue to run and we in the context of that we've made a number of decisions to increase weekly supports to people with a disability to invest significantly in services for people with a disability and now work is underway in terms of the development of a cost of disability payment and we want to work in partnership and with representative groups and political parties in terms of getting that right