Budget has left working people out in the cold – Sinn Féin

By Jonathan McCambridge, PA

The Government’s budget has left working people “out in the cold”, Sinn Féin has said.

The party’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty accused ministers of abandoning election pledges and “giving nothing” to those impacted by the cost-of-living crisis.

Your big message in this Budget, and people have heard it loud and clear today, is that you are on your own.

Delivering his Budget response statement in the Dáil, Mr Doherty said: “When all the clapping is done, when all the back-slapping is over and the Government benches die down, when all of the spin that we have heard, the bluster, the deluded arrogance that has come dripping from both ministers’ speeches, ordinary people, where are they?

“They are left in the cold.”

He added: “Your big message in this budget, and people have heard it loud and clear today, is that you are on your own.

“This is a budget which abandons workers and families to look after those at the top. No help with the cost-of-living crisis … no break from taxes, a blueprint for the continuation for the never-ending crises in our housing and health.

“Election promises one after the other, torn up and thrown in the bin.”

He said the announced increases in petrol and diesel prices was “one of the worst Government decisions we have had”.

It is empty, it is hollow and it is a dead end

Mr Doherty added: “I am shocked by what is in this budget.

“I was asked by somebody in the media what do I think, and I said ‘I don’t believe it, there is something they are going to pull out, there is no way they are going to abandon workers in the way that was suggested’.

“But by God you did that, you gave them nothing.

“This budget reads as a catalogue of handouts for those at the top.”

He added: “If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary households that is impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, if you are one of the people who is facing the avalanche of rip-off bills and struggling to make ends meet, then this budget screws you over.

“It is empty, it is hollow and it is a dead end.”