Sinn Féin's finance spokesperson has said Budget 2021 has failed to provide certainty for people who needed it.
Speaking in the Convention Centre, Pearse Doherty said that the Budget needed to respond to the threats of Covid-19 and Brexit and give certainty to families.
He said: "This Budget needed to provide certainty. Certainty that their incomes will not fall off a cliff; certainty that the Government will do all it can to protect your job; certainty that our health service has the capacity to weather the storms ahead. This Budget has failed to provide that certainty."
Mr Doherty said that a decade ago Fianna Fáil torpedoed the economy and that today was an opportunity to do something different to build an economy that is better.
Reacting to #Budget21 Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty says it has failed to provide certainty for people who needed it, adding it is 'lacking the ambition this moment demands' | @RTEBusiness | Follow live updates: https://t.co/kBBnomV4qY pic.twitter.com/ehlhrK1ijG
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) October 13, 2020
He said that the health service has been under-funded for a decade and that staff and hospitals are now in a vulnerable position.
Mr Doherty also said an increase of 41 ICU beds is nowhere near enough to what is needed in terms of capacity.
He said the health budget leaves health staff and patients vulnerable.
The Government has failed to address fundamental issues within the health system, including pay inequality for frontline workers, Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty has said | @RTEBusiness | Follow live updates: https://t.co/kBBnomV4qY pic.twitter.com/4tppHXyIuY
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) October 13, 2020
Mr Doherty said Sinn Féin's plan would have addressed deficiencies, and that the Government could not find it in themselves to end pay inequality.
"Today was the day where you could have ended the two-tier pay in our public sector," he said.
Mr Doherty said the forgotten people of the Covid-19 pandemic are those with disabilities, and that today they needed relief.
Although he welcomed the increase to reopen services, he said they were left for far too long and had to battle for their rights.
Mr Doherty said the impact of Covid-19 has been felt most on young people and families and he said the Government has left them vulnerable, accusing them of being out of touch.
"As Minister McGrath was signing off on orders to give super junior ministers a €17,000 pay rise, his colleagues across the room were putting pen to paper to cut the Pandemic Unemployment Payment," he said.
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Mr Doherty said that people should be able to retire at the age of 65 and able to draw a State pension at that time.
However, he said that at the moment thousands of 65-year-olds have been forced onto jobseekers' payment after a lifetime of work.
Mr Doherty said the Government has gone ahead with a 29% increase in carbon taxes, which he said would hit poorer and rural households the hardest.
He said that motor tax had been hiked up on petrol and diesel cars and he said that would only impact people who could least afford a tax hike.
Mr Doherty said this was the wrong approach with bills piling up for families.
He said families are facing the threat of increased household debt and they needed relief.
Mr Doherty said that today was the day to announce a "zero policy approach" to price gouging by insurance companies, banks and energy providers.
He accused the Government of siding with big industry as opposed to ordinary people.
