Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister sincerely for his excellent presentation. One of the biggest and most topical financial issues for many workers these days is the issue the Minister touched on and which we will call the recognition of the work done by certain workers in certain sectors of society during the pandemic crisis. I would be acutely aware of the fact we do not have a blank cheque for this. It is not a matter where we can do whatever we like or give whatever people want. I have heard people from the left standing up in the Dáil and, to be blunt about it, saying things that sound great to the public and that sound marvellous. At the end of the day, however, I live in the real world of economics where it is like a business. It has to make money, it has to be able to pay its debts and we have to be able to look after sick and vulnerable people, which is absolutely right. We want to recognise work but we have to do so in a prudent way that the State can afford.

I thank the Minister personally for the effort that he and the other Ministers made during the pandemic. I know for a fact there are businesses open today that would not have been able to stay open only for the supports they received during the crisis. Any politician who would not thank the Minister personally for that or recognise that work would not be doing his or her job properly, in my opinion. Yes, I will be the first person to admit that an awful lot of businesses are struggling post pandemic and coming out of it, and I am sorry to say some will not survive. All I am saying is, only for the efforts of the Minister and others, an awful lot more would have fallen by the wayside. We have to try to evolve as an economy and try to get ourselves up and running slowly, safely and surely, and it will take great guidance and prudence to do so.

Dealing with the whole issue, it is like when a person sets out in a well-meaning way to do something good and it sort of backfires in his or her face. That is the feeling I get with the Government and the issue of recognising the work. No matter what the Government does now, it is going to be 100% wrong. The Government is going to be wrong-sided on this because it is not going to do enough for enough people and, therefore, it is going to be wrong, no matter what it does. What I want to see the Government do is this. Obviously, people working in healthcare put themselves and their families at risk, and we all know 100% that has to be recognised. All I would say to the Government is to try to take everything on board, be balanced and reasonable, and not keep people waiting forever. It is so much in the public domain now that people are expecting the Government to make an announcement in the budget with regard to recognising that, and I would like to see that happen so we can move on from it. Whatever it is going to be, it should be done in the fairest way it can be, but in such a way that we will not be waiting until Christmas for it.

Financially, we are at a juncture in our economic cycle and we really have to recognise work. We have to recognise the contribution of employers. We have to look at people who stand up and speak about employers as if they are an awful type of person. We actually have people in the Dáil who, when they mention the word “employers”, it is like people talking about developers or builders. Over recent days, I met a builder, a very sound man, and I said this on the record of the Dáil yesterday. The reason I did this was because I believe an awful lot of politicians today, if they met a developer or a builder, would nearly be ashamed to say it because it is as though, "Oh my God, I should not be meeting with this person." It is the exact opposite. I think every person in the Dáil should be meeting with developers, builders and people who are in a position, in their minds and in their ability, to turn around and provide us with housing.

The reason I met this man is because he is a sound man who is a builder in Kerry for many years. The one thing he was talking to me about, which is something I am very interested in, is the provision of one-bed accommodations. He was talking about our main town in County Kerry and he said he has the ability to build many houses - accommodations, we will call them - and one-beds in particular, because I told him that is what we need. I told him I am continually raising it with the Government. What I would like to see him do is build them at an affordable rate and then the voluntary housing agencies, the local authority and all those types of groups would be able to purchase them at affordable money. That man, and more luck to him, would make a profit and his company would make a profit, and he would then be able move on to the next job.

My goodness, is that not what we want? I hear politicians standing up in the Dáil to talk about these types of people profiteering from the housing sector and all of this type of rubbish. That is why we have a housing crisis. It is because we are not encouraging that type of work and we are not encouraging that type of person to carry on with their building companies. We have lost many good builders over the years and they would not go near it now because they hear themselves and their industry being ridiculed continually in the Dáil by people who never did a day's work in their lives themselves. It is about time they were told that. They are very lucky they are in Dáil Éireann because, if they were not in the Dáil, they would not manage to make a living driving a digger, with a shovel or mixing cement, or trying to buy a field or borrow money from the bank, because they would not have the ability.

They would be put out of the bank if they were seen going in because they are not wanted there. We need more of those types of people in Ireland to help resolve our housing crisis. I would love to see a queue of Deputies coming into the House on a Tuesday morning saying they had met a developer in their area, a building contractor or a landowner who wants land to be zoned because he wants to sell it for a profit in order that houses can be built on it.

The State will not be able to do it itself. I am not condemning the Government or its two predecessors. History will tell us that governments are not able to provide all the housing that is needed. The private sector is needed and we need those people who have the ability to borrow money, buy land, get it zoned, build houses and make them available at an affordable price. As I said, there seems to be an awful mentality now as though builders have leprosy and people have to run away from them because they do not want to be seen with them; if people had their picture taken with a developer, they should nearly hang their in shame. That type of nonsense has to stop.

I would love a Government to come out and say it wants to encourage these people to be involved and to say it wants the employers who create one or two jobs for themselves, their family or their neighbours, because they are the backbone of Ireland. It is like the farmers who create work for themselves on their farm, and perhaps when they have jobs to be done, they hire their neighbours. There are Deputies who are lucky they are politicians because they would not want to try to do anything else. It is as though they have a hatred for work. I recall hearing one day that on one of the largest construction projects in Ireland, three people had been infected with Covid, and a politician stood up and said the 5,000 or 6,000 other people should all be sent home indefinitely and given €350 a week to stay at home. He wanted to shut down the job because three people had got the virus. The reason he did was he thought they would be better off at home twiddling their thumbs than working.

We have to bring a strong worth ethic back to Dáil Éireann and not listen to the fellas with their backsides coming out through their trousers who do not know the first thing in the world about work. They could not create a job for themselves or anyone else. We need to get down to brass tacks and start supporting that type of an economy. I call on the Minister, the Minister for Finance and the wider Government to really encourage work-----