Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister talked about market failure. The reality of market failure is that in many parts of the country, and through no fault of their own, people must drive distances to work simply because there is no public transport, as the Minister has already outlined, and probably because balanced regional development is not in place. A person must drive 20, 30 or 40 miles to make sure they are able to provide for their families or for children going to college, yet the Minister said there would be a difficulty in carrying out such a scheme. It would not be such a difficulty for a person to prove the mileage he or she is doing. It is not aimed in any way at incentivising people. Reference was made to trying to get people onto a different route. There is a sad reality to some of what we are trying to do here. There are people in what I will call "middle Ireland" who do not qualify for anything. If one is on a lower income threshold then one might qualify, and there are some helps for people who would be at the lower thresholds. I recognise that but I am talking about people from the middle Ireland who pay most of the taxes, and who go out to work every morning and do the normal things of trying to keep kids in school, trying to keep a mortgage paid and trying to keep the students in college. These people would not be getting any more in their wages. They would be going from their house to their place of work. It is not that they would be zooming around the country for the sake of it. Nobody decides or wants to be travelling like that. I know people who commute from Roscommon to Intel. There is no public transport system there or to other such places, be they in Westmeath or Kildare, that would take people to or from work when they need it. I will not criticise that because one cannot be all things to all people, but we have to give a bit of recognition to these people. To be quite blunt, all we are doing is kicking them in the teeth in every budget.