Helping people to afford a decent life shouldn’t be a radical ambition
Helping people to afford a decent life shouldn't be a radical ambition - The Labour Party
There is something very wrong when everyday living in Ireland has become so expensive. Going to work. Raising a family. Renting a home. Heating your house. These are not luxuries, yet for too many people the ordinary costs of everyday life are swallowing up more and more of their income.
That is the backdrop to the Labour Party’s annual think-in taking place in Galway this week.
As our TDs, Senators, MEP and Councillors gather together to prepare for the new political term, our focus is firmly on the cost of living and on the choices facing Government in Budget 2027.
Because people need more than another tokenistic Budget day giveaway. They need Government to start bringing down the underlying cost of living on a sustainable basis.
For years, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have responded to affordability crises with once-off measures – while allowing the basic costs of housing, groceries, energy and transport to become more and more unaffordable. People get a temporary payment with one hand, while Government policy drives the cost of living ever higher.
Last year’s Budget was perhaps the clearest example yet. PAYE workers were ignored, while Government found hundreds of millions of euro for a VAT cut that subsidised fast food chains. That cannot happen again.
And now, at precisely the moment when people are being told that Budget choices are tight, commuters are facing a 15% increase in public transport fares.
That is completely the wrong direction of travel.
For thousands of workers, students and families, taking the bus, train, DART or Luas is not an optional extra. It is how they get to work, college or school every day. A fare hike means yet another increase in the basic cost of living – another bill to come out of the same household income.
Fare increases make no sense economically or environmentally. We should be making it easier and cheaper for people to leave the car at home, not penalising those who already use public transport.
Labour wants to move in the opposite direction. Public transport should become more affordable. We have an ambition to move towards free public transport, particularly for young people and students.
Affordable public transport means more money directly back in people’s pockets. It reduces congestion, lowers emissions, connects communities and expands opportunities for people who cannot afford to drive.
Budget 2027 must be about working people and families. It must focus relentlessly on the bills landing on kitchen tables every week and every month. The cost of getting to work or study must be part of that.
We have seen the pressure particularly clearly over recent days as children return to school.
Primary school parents expect to spend more than €1,600 across the school year, including more than €600 in upfront costs. At second level, the average cost of digital devices alone has reached €430.
The free schoolbooks scheme is welcome, but parents understandably wonder what “free education” really means when they can still be handed a bill for hundreds of euro for an iPad or laptop.
Labour brought practical proposals before the Dáil in July to reduce back-to-school costs and tackle the growing digital divide. Government did not oppose our motion. Now it needs to implement it.
The same political choice faces Government on childcare.
Parents are paying enormous sums, struggling to secure places and organising their working lives around a system that simply does not provide the certainty families need. At the same time, those working in childcare remain chronically undervalued.
Labour wants to build a genuinely public childcare system. One that reduces costs for parents, provides decent wages and conditions for workers, increases capacity and, most importantly, gives every child access to high-quality early years care and education.
Housing remains the greatest affordability crisis of all.
For a generation of younger people, the idea that hard work will eventually allow you to afford your own home has been swept away. Renters now hand over vast proportions of their income every month, with little ability left to save. Families are living in desperately overcrowded homes because there is nowhere affordable for them to go.
This housing crisis is the consequence of political decisions made over many years.
The same is true of the energy crisis.
Households have been hammered by high electricity and heating costs, and thousands are now in arrears. Labour put forward proposals in May for targeted energy credits when bills rise. Government should adopt our proposals in October’s Budget.
But once-off supports cannot substitute for reform.
We also need a retrofitting revolution, delivered street by street and community by community. Retrofitting homes properly would permanently reduce household bills, improve the quality of our housing stock and cut Ireland’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.
That need has become even more urgent in an increasingly unstable world. Energy security is economic security. Ireland cannot continue leaving families exposed to international fossil fuel price shocks while failing to use the enormous renewable resources available to us.
That is why Labour’s message as we begin the new political term is simple. Government needs to stop making everyday life more expensive.
That includes reversing course on public transport fares. It is simply indefensible to talk about easing the cost of living while making it 15% more expensive for people to get the bus or train to work.
We need to move beyond the politics of once-off giveaways and start tackling the structural costs that are leaving working people permanently squeezed.
That means affordable housing and stronger protections for renters. It means public childcare. It means reducing education costs. It means cheaper public transport. It means targeted support with energy bills alongside a massive programme of retrofitting and renewable energy.
These are political choices. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been in Government for long enough to own the consequences of theirs.
Budget 2027 is therefore an important test. After a Budget that delivered nothing meaningful for PAYE workers last year, Government cannot return in October with another package that looks impressive on announcement day but leaves families facing the same enormous bills in November.
People who get up every morning, travel to work, raise families and contribute to their communities should be able to afford a decent life. They should not be charged more and more simply to get to work, keep a roof over their heads, heat their homes or send their children to school.
That should not be a radical ambition in a wealthy country. It should be the basic promise of politics.
Labour intends to spend the coming political term fighting to make that promise real.