If not now, when? There is no excuse if we do not budget for social justice

THE last decade has been a trying one for Ireland. After the spectacular economic growth of the so-called Celtic Tiger years, Ireland experienced other equally spectacular though entirely unwanted ‘highs’.

Unemployment climbed to more than 15pc, with almost 330,000 people jobless; Ireland’s debt levels reached 120pc of GDP; homelessness hit record levels; and at one point the deprivation rate stood at over 30pc.

While much of the last decade has been very hard for most, both economically and socially, things have improved significantly on many fronts and most of Ireland’s economic fundamentals are currently on a positive trend.

Consumer spending is up, employment trends are positive, and the export growth of recent times is expected to continue, though at a slower pace.

Indeed, Ireland’s economy, regardless of unbelievable growth rates and so-called ‘leprechaun economics’, has been the fastest growing economy in Europe for several years now.

But such statistics only tell part of the story of where Ireland as a society has come from and where it is headed. Many of the issues that Social Justice Ireland highlighted in its Budget Choices Briefing 12 months ago have seen little improvement, or indeed have disimproved.

Almost 800,000 people live in poverty; more than a quarter are children. Some 1.2 million people experience poverty and/or deprivation. There is a social housing crisis and close to 10,000 people are homeless.

The two-tier healthcare system has long waiting lists and a recurring A&E crisis with people waiting on trolleys.

While employment growth is very welcome, there are many precarious jobs with young people, women and migrants being most vulnerable.

The unavailability of quality broadband in rural Ireland is a major drawback and undermines efforts at balanced regional development. The lack of appropriate action on climate change will have very negative consequences.

Readers could add to this list of challenges Ireland currently faces. The key point that needs to be recognised and action taken on is that Ireland needs a medium-tolong-term approach from Government on the scale required to address these issues.

The latest National Development Plan lacks coherence and is not on the scale required.

Failure to address these challenges effectively is often explained or excused by claiming the resources to address them didn’t exist or the time wasn’t right to spend that money.

In the years of plenty, we were warned not to use the available resources to address these challenges because any change of approach might result in destabilisation of the record levels of growth the country was experiencing.

With the coming of the economic crash and the subsequent bailout, the time was not right because “the resources don’t exist” and “we must fix the economy first”.

Now that the economy is thriving and resources are plentiful, we are being told we must be careful not to spend money addressing these challenges, either because they might overheat the economy or result in us not honouring the fiscal parameters imposed as a political solution to an economic problem during the economic turbulence at the start of this decade.

It seems there is never a right time to make substantial social investment commitments.

Now is the time. Ireland has the resources and capacity to build a fairer future for all.

The key areas of focus for the Government in Budget 2019 should be on lifting people out of poverty, providing decent services in healthcare and education, and delivering appropriate infrastructure in social housing, public transport and rural broadband on the scale required to meet the current level of need.

The resources exist. Now is the appropriate time to address these challenges.

Budget 2019 should be structured towards delivering five outcomes: a thriving economy, decent infrastructure and services, just taxation, good governance and sustainability.

IT is not good enough to work for one or two of these outcomes – they are interdependent and all five should be delivered simultaneously. Budget 2019 should be designed so that it is both economically sound and socially fair. These twin objectives are both realistic and achievable. However, they need to be underpinned by a clear policy commitment and by budget decisions aimed at achieving both.

The overall scale of the available resources is particularly large as the budget moves to be classified as “technically balanced”. The shift to this status implies that there are resources available on this occasion that should be seen as a once-off opportunity to invest strategically in providing the additional social and economic infrastructure that Ireland urgently needs.

A deeply divided, two-tier society is bad for business, bad for society and bad for the future. Budget 2019 provides a unique opportunity to bridge the gaps in our current economic and social infrastructure. It’s an opportunity that should not be missed.

With the coming of the economic crash and the subsequent bailout, the time was not right because “the resources don’t exist” and “we must fix the economy first”. Now we are being warned not to spend because it might overheat the economy.

Social Justice Ireland will launch its ‘Policy Briefing on Budget Choices’ at 11am today. The launch will be live streamed on http://socialjustice.ie/