Community & Voluntary Pillar's Budget alternatives echo Sinn Féin's stance

THE pre-Budget briefing by the 17 member groups in the Community and Voluntary Pillar of Social Partners is welcome and echoes the calls of Sinn Féin for an alternative Budget that will not undermine growth, Sinn Féin TD Arthur Morgan has said.

The Sinn Féin spokesperson on Finance described the Government’s economic strategy as “dangerous for the future”.

The Community and Voluntary Pillar of Social Partners consists of:-

• Age Action Ireland
• Carers' Association
• Children’s Rights Alliance
• Congress Centres for the Unemployed
• CORI Justice Commission
• Disability Federation of Ireland
• Irish Council for Social Housing
• Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed
• Irish Rural Link
• Irish Senior Citizens' Parliament
• National Association of Building Co-operatives
• National Youth Council of Ireland
• Protestant Aid
• Society of St Vincent de Paul
• The Wheel

Deputy Morgan said:

This Government’s economic strategy is dangerous in its prescription for the future. The pre-Budget briefing by the Community and Voluntary Pillar is welcome and it echoes the calls of Sinn Féin for an alternative budget that will not undermine growth.

Stability requires a credible medium-term path for fiscal sustainability and stable growth. The course of premature fiscal retrenchment from Government and a drastic tightening of consumer spending, coupled with benefit cuts and rising unemployment, will stunt economic growth into the future.

The Government believe that they can slash public spending, bring low-earners into the tax bracket, cut benefits, take billions out of the economy and out of people’s pockets and that none of this will have any impact on unemployment or growth.

While the other Dáil parties have subscribed to reducing the Budget deficit through a litany of cuts, Sinn Féin has been central in advocating the need for an alternative Budget – a Budget of investment and growth.

Sinn Féin’s alternative approach to reducing the deficit is based on taxing wealth in the state and growing the economy through a job-creation stimulus plan.

The cuts have failed in their stated objective. The opposite course is actually required.

The pre-Budget briefing with the 17 member groups of the Community and Voluntary Pillar has proven that a Community, as advocated by Sinn Féin in December.