Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his team and thank them for the presentation. Regarding his final point, the Social Welfare (No. 2) Bill is before the Dáil this week and the bulk of social welfare recipients, who are often to the pin of the collar trying to survive, did not get increases in what was another austerity budget. Who can predict what will happen in British politics but if 2020 turns out to be like 2019, is there not a strong case to target more resources at people dependent on pensions and social protection? Should that be the case, we would be able to afford it so is there not a strong case to have another budget, given that the Minister did not have a budget worth talking about. It was a non-budget last month.

In the spending review cycle how do Departments decide on what topics will be included in the spending review? How has it turned out with regard to what was planned when the review on particular areas was taking place? Have the findings of the review been incorporated into policy in various expenditure areas?

Following up the questions that have been asked about health, we all saw a lengthy interview last Sunday with the CEO of the HSE, in which he seemed to indicate the overspend of €335 million and that we will have a Supplementary Estimate for it. Has the Minister received his plan? He spoke about publishing it yesterday or at the weekend. Does he have his operational plan for 2020? I know it has a specific technical name. Some people thought we did not have a plan for 2019. How do we know what resources the CEO of the HSE and all of his 120,000 staff will need in 2020 when we do not know what they are planning to do with regard to acute hospital beds, waiting lists, the treatment fund, more consultants, more GPs and all of the issues we hear about day in and day out?

With regard to corporation tax, the Minister has been speaking all the time about broadening the tax base but what exactly has he done to do so? He mentioned the 45% dependence on corporation tax from these large companies that have headquarters not too far away from this building. How does he see that panning out as time goes on? With regard to stamp duty and capital taxation in the October fiscal monitor, stamp duty seems to be cumulatively well behind by €100 million. What is the Minister doing in this territory?

With regard to the topic of the hour, besides Brexit, namely, climate change, are Departments working intensively on the overall packages that will be needed to retrofit all homes in the country?

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, has given some figures for different areas relating to decarbonising transport, such as with cycling and using electric vehicles. Car taxes and excise duties were traditionally a huge bedrock of revenue, but do we have a master plan for the next five years to enable us to make up for the gaps in duties while providing the necessary funding to decarbonise this country seriously from 2030 onwards?