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

I thank the Ministers and their backup team. As always, we very much appreciate them attending meetings like this because it is very important and gives us an opportunity to engage with them. We appreciate their time.

I know the two Ministers are worn out from the pitches being made in advance of the budget but it would be neglectful of me not to do the same. Every one of us feels that the ground is slipping away from underneath us when it comes to the hospitality sector and that both Ministers have their minds made up, and the Government has its mind made up, not to change or even have a partial differential in the VAT rate.

I am not going to be so cheeky as to assume what the Ministers will do, but that seems to be the message they are giving out.

One thing neither of the two Ministers can be accused of is not knowing what is happening out there. I appreciate very much that they are working politicians in every aspect of what that means. They are aware that 50 restaurants every week are closing in the hospitality sector. They can imagine the massive knock-on that is having. I have heard people in government make the argument that it is a correction that is going to happen and that those businesses were not viable. However, the killing thing about it is that many of those were long-established businesses. They were families, couples working together, sons and daughters and all types of people coming together to work. They may not have been making fabulous amounts of money, but they were able to keep the door open and the light on as we say. Unfortunately, that has been taken away from them. I was really hopeful that the Ministers would do something because I come from the tourism capital of the western world, namely, County Kerry and, of course, Killarney, which no one here will dispute is the crowning jewel. We do hospitality better than anyone else in any other part of the world, and we are not boastful about it either. However, I have to say this on behalf of the people around the Ring of Kerry and all those lovely businesses that want to stay open. I make a plea to the Government not to put them out of business. I should not even say it that way because I know that is not what the Government wants to do. However, I am pleading with the Ministers to try to do something even at this late stage.

There are other basic things I have to get off my chest. Irish Water is in serious trouble because it does not have any money. The whole model seems to be breaking down. We never wanted more projects to be carried out than we do now, but we have never had as little money to do so. That is a very important issue. It would be very neglectful not to say that to the Ministers today.

With regard to the Apple tax case, my position on this all along was the same as that of the Government, in that no one wants to say no to money but, at the same time, we had to look at the bigger picture. We had to be so grateful to those companies, including Apple, which came here and gave us much-needed jobs. We were happy with the deal they had when they came here, and we were not looking to change that. In a way, and I said this earlier this evening, we won twice because we backed the companies. We were not looking for this from Apple but now it has been found by the courts that the State is entitled to it. Please God, if we get it, we will spend it all right. I have a couple of ideas for how we could spend it, but I believe, like everything, we should be prudent, and we should first of all ensure that any money we spend on capital projects is money well spent. I will give the Ministers the example, and I know both of them travelled on it over the last number of months, of the Baile Bhuirne to Macroom bypass and what that is going to mean. That was brought in at or under budget. It was massive value for money and it will be there forever. It will be there when none of us are here. We need more of that. We need the Adare bypass to be completed. We need a bypass for the tourism capital of the world, which I told the Ministers about earlier, the great town of Killarney. We are a victim of our own success and we need a bypass. We have a relief road but we need a bypass for the town and we need the funding for that. We are very disappointed in Kerry at present in that we had Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, projects going ahead. That Minister and his Department have cut that budget. In places like Bunane, from Kenmare down through Tahilla and Sneem and around the Ring of Kerry road, there were projects that were shovel ready. Our excellent people in Kerry County Council under the stewardship of our director of services, Mr. Frank Hartnett, were all ready to go to work. The tenders were out. We had our side of the house done but the rug was pulled out from underneath us. We need those types of situations to be addressed.

Coming back to what should be done with the Apple money, we should do things that are imaginative. One thing I always had in my head is that there is no reason in the world we should not have a bullet train in Ireland. They have bullet trains in every other part of Europe. Why do we not have a bullet train? If we want to connect it - I know it is a bit ambitious when we consider we do not have a rail track going out to Dublin Airport at present - we should actually connect Shannon with Dublin Airport. If that was connected by means of a bullet train, it would be a game-changer for this country. Could we afford it? Of course we could. Could we engineer it? Of course we could. Did we not do it everywhere else around the world? Why could we not do it at home?

When it comes to the spending of the Apple money, I would like every one of us who is elected, if we are still here and have not been given the chop by the electorate, to have a say and work together to ensure we give the people what they deserve, that is, value-for-money, common-sense projects. For example, every one of us knows what an LIS road is - it is a local improvement scheme road. People are going to be waiting for 20 or 30 years for those roads to be completed. We have more than 600 of them in County Kerry alone. At the same time, however, and I am just using Kerry as an example, if we were to get something in the order of maybe €20 or €30 million, we would wipe out that list and our local authority could do it in a very short length of time. All we need is the funding. It is the same throughout the rest of the country. Those roads are very important because they are the last road that takes a person to his or her home. Wherever you are going to, you have to leave your house and travel on that road. These are taxpayers, people who have worked hard all their lives. Would it not be great to see them get a boost from that Apple fund? There are common-sense things we should be doing and looking at. I would like to think the Ministers will take some of these things on board. I know they have the little matter of the budget to get out of the way before they start looking at the Apple money. However, we definitely have to be shrewd about how we spend it and what we do with it because it is not every day we get a lump of money like that in one go. Of course, I am relying on the Ministers' prudence when it comes to the money the Government has in this budget.

Recently I met with parents and people involved in dealing with people with intellectual and physical disabilities in County Kerry. We met in St. Mary of the Angels in Beaufort. An 80-year-old parent told me she found it easier to get respite services for her special son 30 years ago than she does now. I thought that was very telling. Why do I want to tell that to two Ministers with responsibility for finance this evening? It is quite simply because hearing a story like that hit me, so I know it will hit them. This woman found it easier to get respite and help to give her a break 30 years ago than she does today. That is a bad reflection on all of us, myself included. It is wrong. We should have services. We should have respite services readily available for special people. We should be able to ensure that people who are getting older do not have to be worried about their children. Even though many of the children we are talking about are now 40 or 50 years old, they are their children, and they are special children. They are people every one of us should be concerned about. They are the people we should be minding more than anyone else because they need our help and they need us to fight for them. I said at the meeting that when I had a forum at which to tell that story, I would do so at the first opportunity. I promised that lady I would do it and I am keeping my promise. It is important. It is a very important message. It is something we should all learn from because that should not be the case.

Chairman, I am sorry if I have gone on for too long; I apologise.