The Government’s proposed 15 per cent increase to bus and train fares “during a climate crisis and a cost-of-living crisis,” has been described as “absolutely outrageous” by People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy.
Speaking outside Leinster House as part of a photocall ahead of an Affordable Ireland Campaign protest planned for Saturday, September 19th, in Dublin city centre, Murphy said the financial supports for measures such as retrofitting, solar panels and public transport should be prioritised to “simultaneously tackle the cost-of-living crisis and the climate crisis”.
“The Government is making decisions, in one of the richest countries in the world, with a massive budget surplus, that are making life harder for the majority of people.
“We all need to come together, we need to be on the streets in big numbers to demand a budget that is going to protect people from the cost-of-living crisis instead of making it worse for them.”
The Affordable Ireland Campaign is calling for a number of changes such as supports to help with energy costs, price controls on food and energy, free public transport and a living wage.
He said the increases to public transport fares needed to be stopped “immediately”.
He also said, “all the evidence is clear, disabled people need a cost of disability payment”.
“Instead of those measures that put money into the pockets of the rich, we think we need measures that put money into the pockets of ordinary people.”
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He said these measure could include an “energy credit for ordinary people”, “giving public sector workers a decent pay rise as opposed to below inflation”, “an increase in the minimum wage to make the minimum wage a living wage as opposed to a wage that people can’t survive on” and “investing to bring public transport fares down instead of up”.
“For a long time, we’ve been calling for free public transport to get people out of cars.”
Daniel Walsh, president of Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn (Amlé), previously the Union of Students in Ireland, said “it is devastating for so many students across the country who simply cannot find accommodation because accommodation isn’t there”.
“The shortfall in student specific accommodation in Ireland is anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 beds each year, and that’s a gap that won’t be made up by private market interventions.”
He said there needed to be “significant state intervention into the student accommodation market with investment into purpose-built student accommodation, which is safe, which is secure, which is affordable for students”.
He said that after last year’s budget, “a lot of students actually found themselves worse off”.
This year Amlé is urging “meaningful action on the cost of college crisis” to include investment in purpose-built student accommodation, the abolition of the student contribution charge and the drawing up of a “multiannual funding plan”.
Rory Hearne, a Social Democrats TD, said “the cost-of-living crisis is completely out of control”.
“People are really struggling with the basics,” he said, mentioning increases to the cost of electricity and gas, public transport and food.
“What we want to see is a budget that really actually acts properly to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and so we want people to come out on the 19th and really show that they want real action on this.”
In Budget 2027, he said, “basic costs of living” should be reduced through investment in public services.
He said public childcare should be introduced to “significantly reduce the cost of childcare”, a reduction in public transport costs, the introduction of a “targeted energy credit,” a reduction in GP costs particularly for those aged under 18 and a second tier child benefit.