“Workers and families pay the price again for FG/ FF budget policies” – Matt Carthy MEP
Budget 2020 was a wasted opportunity according to Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy. “Instead of giving families and workers a break” he said “Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have targeted them for stealth tax hikes once again”
Speaking following the announcement of the Budget by Finance Minister Pascal Donohoe the Midlands North West representative accused the government of failing to give workers and families a break.
He echoed the sentiments of his own party’s finance spokesperson, Pearse Doherty, who described the budget as short on ideas, short on policies and short on solutions.
Matt Carthy said:
“This Budget could and should have given workers and families a break. It hasn’t. Instead it has burdened them with an increase in carbon taxes, stealth charges than cannot be avoided by most people living outside of the cities.
“With the political will and the right ideas, this budget could put money back in people’s pockets and improved their access to public services. Clearly, neither Fine Gael nor their Fianna Fáil backers have the will or the ideas.
“The budget should have begun to broaden our horizons, making sure that work pays and delivers security and the chance to plan for the future. It could have marked the beginning for a fair tax system, making sure that those who benefit most from our economy – the banks, multinationals and international property investors who have been given a free ride for far too long – pay their fair share.
“The government have again failed to deliver on these modest expectations. As Pearse Doherty rightly said, it is a budget that is short on ideas, short on policies and short on solutions. It is a budget that lacks ambition, lacks direction, and lacks hope.
“Sinn Féin presented a fully-costed alternative budget that shows how we could have invested in public services, supported growth in our economy and giving families and workers a break.
“We outlined the options that the government could have taken to ensure real and deliverable solutions, putting citizens, not vested interests, at the centre of the economy and at the top of their priorities.
“The truth is that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – partners in this budgetary process – could have tackled the rip-off costs faced by countless families – sky-high insurance premiums, extortionate rents and mortgage rates, eye-watering childcare costs and back to school costs. They choose not to do so, to their shame.
“The Sinn Féin budget proposals would have raised incomes and made sure that work delivers a secure standard of living. Unfortunately it appears that for so long as Fine Gael are in government ordinary families and workers will be forced to pay the price for their failed policies.”
For info the Sinn Féin alternative budget, authored by Pearse Doherty is available to download at www.sinnfein.ie
ENDS
