Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Buried in the depths of the expenditure reductions is a €325 per annum cut in the respite care grant from €1,700 to €1,375. That is a cruel cut and there is no need for it to be implemented. My God, the bar has been set so high to qualify for a respite care grant now that many people with a family member, who has a serious disability, either use that grant to get a break - use it for respite - or they use it to provide essential intervention services for their loved one to fill the gaps where the HSE is not providing those services. There is no need for that cruel cut and I ask the Minister to reverse that cut which hits the most vulnerable people. Given the choices the Government has made in respect of taxation, it is impossible to justify that people with special needs should suffer a cut affecting their standard of living, which will add extra anguish and pain to the family members who care for them and save the State billions of euro every year in the process.

At the conclusion of my budget speech last year, I made the point that I have repeated since that the fairest way to measure the Government's performance on the economy is by measuring how successful it is at tackling the jobs crisis. I welcome some of the initiatives outlined in the Budget Statement, which hopefully will help the SME sector to create additional jobs here. Since the Government came to office in March 2011, using the official CSO figures, the quarterly national household survey seasonally adjusted, there are 30,000 fewer people at work. The unemployment rate increased from 14.3% to 14.8%.

We all accept that it would have gone up far more but for the safety valve of emigration. A total of 87,000 people, mainly young people, left our shores in the 12 months to April 2012. When the Minister took office, he said employment levels would grow by 0.5% in 2012. He now says they will fall by 1.2%. He said unemployment would be 13.7% by the end of this year. He now admits it will be just under 15%. He is now predicting no increase in employment levels throughout next year. All the fanciful talk of 100,000 jobs under NewERA and the five point plan has been long forgotten. The five point plan has not been seen since February 2011.

The most alarming aspect of this is the dramatic increase in the number of people who are long-term unemployed. A total of 60% of people out of work are now long-term unemployed. What are we doing for them and where are the jobs? Can we really say we are putting enterprise at the heart of everything we do? Can we say we are doing everything to support the 200,000 small businesses in this country who provide almost 700,000 jobs? We know these businesses will lead the economic recovery if we give them the capacity to do so. These businesses are starved of credit. The Minister knows that banks are not meeting the lending needs of this economy. Even when AIB came before the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, it confirmed that the new lending it has extended so far this year is €600 million, not the €3.5 billion the Minister says it is providing. They are loans that are repackaged and approvals that never get drawn down because the conditions and interest rates are so onerous that the borrower would never have the capacity to draw down that money.

The Minister said the economy would grow by 2.5% in real terms in 2012. He now says it will grow by 0.9%. He said it would grow by 3% next year but has now halved that and says it will grow by 1.5%. He said private consumption, which is the driver of the domestic economy, would grow by 1% in 2013. He now says it will fall by 0.5%. He said exports would grow by 6%. We are now told they will potentially grow by 3%. The warning signs were there in respect of the public finances and Exchequer returns yesterday, particularly in respect of the self-employed. The €300 million deficit in income tax last month should have set the alarm bells ringing and the Minister should be giving that sector every support he can in its time of need.

I had hoped and half-expected that the Minister would pull a rabbit out of the hat today in respect of the promissory note and bank debt. I am, sadly, disappointed. I wish him well in his ongoing negotiations. The technical talks on the promissory note have been ongoing for about 14 months. They must be extremely technical. We have not seen any paper so far and would love to see one and have an input into it. I wish the Minister well in that because it is important for the country and we will do everything we can to support the Government to get a deal on bank debt. The Minister also needs to be honest with people in respect of the use of the European Stability Mechanism. It will be at least a year before there is any relief in that aspect of bank debt and he might as well call it as it is and tell people what the position is.

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