Sinn Féin’s Dublin spokesperson Denise Mitchell TD has described Budget 2020 as “all style and no substance”.

The Dublin Bay North TD said Dublin has become one of the most expensive cities in the world to have a child in and the Government seem to have no clue as to how to give families a break. 

Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon Teachta Mitchell said;

“Another year, another Fine Gael Budget that is all style and no substance. 

“The government has shown that it cannot properly budget for our vital public services or give struggling families a break.

“The good people of the Northside, who I have the honour of representing, will not be taken in by the Minister for Finance standing in this chamber and saying that things are going swimmingly and what a great job Fine Gael are doing for the country. 

“Meanwhile, the city is choking. Nearly 3,000 children are growing up in hotel rooms. Parents are at their wits end just trying to make ends meet and Fine Gael cannot bring themselves to do right by the honest, hardworking people of this country. 

“Meanwhile Fianna Fáil sit on the sidelines and offer only token opposition, as they have done for the past three years. Fianna Fáil have let down the people of Dublin just as much as their co-conspirators on the Government benches. 

“They’ll pass another Fine Gael budget that is dead set on maintaining the status quo of the haves and have nots, of the elite and the struggling. 

“A few bob to cover the astronomical cost of childcare will not convince a single family that this Government is on their side because they are not and they never have been. 

“Dublin has become one of the most expensive cities in the world to have a child in and the Government seem to have no clue as to give families a break. 

“Sinn Féin have a plan to radically transform the entire childcare sector, while Fine Gael and Minister Zappone are content to just grant another meagre concession that will be swallowed up within a year when prices just go up again. 

“There is nothing in this Budget for renters while the real winners are the landlords and those profiteering from the housing crisis, just as it has been for every Fine Gael Budget we have seen. 

“The people of Crumlin, Cabra, and Coolock are all united by the dread of a year passing and the rents going up. The Rent Pressure Zones have not worked and there is no hope on the horizon for anyone stuck in the rent trap. Not under this Government. 

“Sinn Féin would help renters by introducing an emergency freeze on rents and bringing in rent relief which would save them the equivalent of one month’s rent each year.

“Budgets are about choices and Sinn Féin choose to invest in services that will make a real difference to ordinary families by reducing the cost of living and allowing those families the benefit of knowing that a parent will not have to give up work to mind a child or children; that if that child falls sick, that there is a bed for them in a hospital and not a trolley or a never ending waiting list; that they need not panic that the next time the car has a fault or schoolbooks need buying. 

“The Budget cannot be about just getting by, it must be about ensuring people can have a decent life.

“We need to give working families a break, not talk down to them and tell them that we know best and that they are not working hard enough.

“People are working hard, harder than this government and their Fianna Fáil stooges and that’s for sure.”

ENDS