Today’s Summer Economic Statement is another squandered opportunity by the government to shore up our tax base and invest now to tackle the enormous pressures facing our economy and society, the Social Democrats said today.
The party’s co-leader Catherine Murphy TD said diverting some corporation tax into a ‘rainy day fund’ at a time of unprecedented crisis in housing shows the extent to which the government is divorced from reality around us.
Deputy Murphy said:
“The Minister for Finance has set up a rainy day fund to reach €3bn by the end of 2021. Does he not get it that the rainy days are already here? We have shamefully high numbers of homeless children and families and a chronic shortage of affordable homes that pose a real risk to our economic prosperity and competitiveness.
“Why are we even talking about a rainy day fund when we have 5,963 adults and 3,689 children waking up in homeless accommodation and such a chronic shortage of homes to buy or rent that Google is snapping up entire developments to house its workers?
“It makes absolutely no sense to establish such a fund when the country faces EU environmental fines due to the lack of investment in transport alternatives and energy efficiency. We need to spend now to save later in areas such as housing and climate.”
ENDS
19 June 2018