This Budget has failed to give people the certainty that they needed.
People on middle and low incomes who were worried about energy costs yesterday will remain worried today.
And there will be huge concerns that we will see widespread rent increases in the coming months.
It is incredible when so much has been said about the squeezed middle that 1.8 million workers will not get one cent from the main tax proposal.
In the midst of a health crisis, there is not one additional acute bed delivered and the situation in housing is as appalling.
This Budget was about political choices. Many of the choices made were the wrong ones.
The fact is that the crises in health and housing are going to continue because of their failure to act.
Sinn Fein would have given people the help and certainty to get through the winter months while building for the future; delivering the housing, healthcare and climate measures needed.
We would have slashed the USC and made cost of living payments to middle and low income workers; putting €600 in the pockets of nurses, teachers and private sector workers on €36,000.
We would have put a month’s rent back into renters’ pockets and banned increases for three years. We would have brought electricity prices back to pre-crisis levels and capped them until February, helping two million households get through winter.
We would have provided an extra €1.08billion to deliver 20,000 homes – the Government provided just €68million extra and no more homes. We would have invested an additional €360million to tackle climate change. This would have included overhauling retrofits, solar panels on schools buildings, fare reduction and expanding rural bus schemes and investing in ports to exploit offshore wind.
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