Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

Tá mé ag roinnt mo chuid ama leis na Teachtaí Morgan, Cowley agus Ó Murchú. Bhí a lán daoine ag caint faoin gcáinaisnéis mar cháinaisnéis a bheadh, ar bhealach amháin nó bhealach eile, glas. It is clear we did not get a green budget. It was a half-hearted, short-sighted and profoundly conservative exercise and, given the amount of expectation, quite disappointing. Many commentators have described the budget as unimaginative. It is worse than that, it is not prudent. It lacks direction and does not address the fundamental economic and social challenges that have been staring our society in the face for many years.

There are many explanations for the Government's failure to deliver the promised green budget. Perhaps it is due to this Government's deeply rooted inability to plan ahead or because the Government has lost sight of the national interest, instead prioritising its narrow, partisan electoral interests, defined by its main backers. Perhaps the Government's failure stems from its Ministers being unwilling and unable to comprehend what it means to be ecological or think in a green way.

Green means sound economic, social and environmental policy based on solid analysis. It means securing economic development and social inclusion for children today and their children in future decades. Green means dependable, efficient public services. Green means decent services, not handouts to the most vulnerable in society. If yesterday's budget was green the Minister would have taken substantial measures to reduce the cost of child care and ended the means test on children's allowance. Green means warm well-insulated housing and high quality, accessible acute health care services. It means smart reforms of stamp duty to help first-time buyers, those who are downsizing and those with disabilities who need to move to an accessible house. Unfortunately, that has been overlooked by the Government.

It would mean progressive rather than regressive tax changes. This is not to say I do not welcome a number of aspects of the budget. Grants for planting bioenergy crops have improved, there are much-needed social welfare increases and measures to support small business and remove much bureaucracy are also very important. We depend on small businesses and I hope they will be the survivors when other economies, particularly in Asia, rob us of much of our foreign direct investment.

In addition to these specific measures, I welcome the Minister's admission after ten years in Government that environmental protection and economic progress can go hand in hand. Any economist knows that without a healthy environment or secure energy supply, a thriving economy is impossible. The Minister is at least paying lip service to this important principle.

To be clear, this budget is not green, and any attempt by the Government parties to paint it so is disingenuous and politically mischievous. In speaking about energy security and climate change, Nero would have been proud of the Minister's performance yesterday. The Minister, wrapped in a toga, should have been holding a small musical instrument, most likely a lyre from the time, while he made his speech. Climate change and energy supply are the biggest economic, social and environmental issues facing us and the Minister is, in effect, fiddling while Rome burns.

The Minister put the environment section of his speech high up in his script yesterday, but when I looked at the substance of the budget I was profoundly disappointed. The Minister spent most of his time speaking of past schemes and those which are simply being continued. Of the €300 million in new money announced yesterday relating to climate change, €270 million is being put into the carbon fund. Due to its own failures, the Government is sending the money out of the country instead of investing it in establishing a secure energy supply, creating jobs and supporting enterprise.

Where is the cost-benefit analysis on this expenditure? Like so many other elements of this Government's expenditure, there is none. For example, there was no cost-benefit analysis on the runway plan for Dublin Airport either. The €270 million being sent out of the country can be juxtaposed with the budget from 1987 when the then Minister for Finance, Ray MacSharry, was declaring how scandalous, regressive and objectionable it was for money to leave the country. The current Minister is boasting about sending €270 million out of the country, which is scandalous.

This is precisely the type of ex post facto expenditure referred to by the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. It is too late and too much, with no economic, social or environmental return. I note the Government will attempt to shoehorn the Carbon Fund Bill into next week's Dáil schedule, pushing it through without any serious debate. Our Ministers are so embarrassed by this policy failure that they would not have any substantial debate on the floor of the House.

I should make the Green Party's position on this legislation very clear. It is a symbol of the Government's complete failure on climate change policy. The Government's figures predict a 35 million tonne overshoot for the five-year Kyoto commitment period from 2008 to 2012, and while the EU is meant to cut transport emissions by 5% on 1990 levels, Ireland's transport emissions have increased by 150%.

We must invest money in combating climate change in Ireland. We should invest money in warm and well-insulated houses for first-time buyers, and we should also transform the Carlow and Mallow sugar factories into ethanol-producing plants that would give us some fuel security, as well as helping our Kyoto commitments. Dr. Mike Hopkins of Dublin City University has pointed to several alternatives, stating for example that more money could have been invested in biofuels, bringing savings in reducing heating and wastage.

The investment of €20 million in the greener homes scheme is spectacularly underwhelming. In a €60 billion budget and a country falling short of its Kyoto target by 35 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, it is a drop in the ocean. To be honest, it is spin and nothing short of fraud.

The Minister's promises to consult on VRT and motor tax show a distinct political weakness. Is the Minister afraid to take his courage in his hands and make a decision before consulting the motor industry? The Minister's so-called environmental measures even fail the green-wash test. Responding to yesterday's budget, Friends of the Earth observed that the Government's cop-out is complete. If Deputy Brian Cowen was meant to be Santa Claus, the Irish people must be wondering what they have done wrong, as all he has given future generations is quite literally a lump of coal. The Government pays lip service to "the polluter pays" principle but the taxpayer is footing the bill in a completely irrational and unjust way.

The tax measures introduced are typically regressive, giving €150 to a single person earning €150,000 but only €35 to those earning €20,000 per year. This budget is exacerbating inequality and is failing to assist the working poor. The Government's attempt to obscure that it has broken its promise that middle-income earners would not pay tax at the higher marginal rate is desperate, transparent and pathetic. The promise was made on the basis of nominal rather than effective tax rates and I urge the Deputies opposite to stand and acknowledge that the Government has broken this promise to voters.

The would-be first-time buyer, those on social housing waiting lists and the hard-pressed young family trying to keep up with spiralling mortgage repayments are being squeezed by this Government's failures. I agree with Focus Ireland in its comments that the budget has failed to create a fair society. I see nothing in it for the 43,000 households on social housing waiting lists and I do not see the Government implementing the National Economic and Social Council's recommendations to build 10,000 social housing units each year from 2007 to 2013. While the extension of mortgage interest relief is welcome, it is simply necessary as the European Central Bank's probable decision to raise interest rates today will negate any value from the announced relief.

Measures to help parents providing care for their children were conspicuous by their absence, and the Minister announced the extension of what is effectively a failed scheme. We were waiting for some reference to education as we have the second-highest class sizes in primary school in OECD countries and the worst campus accommodation in Europe for third-level students, but we got nothing. The M50 again came to a standstill this morning with just one accident, and the indications are there that the Government is living in a parallel universe when it comes to people's daily lives.

I note the Minister for Health and Children is planning to spend €15 billion next year but with all this money being spent it is amazing the Government is getting it so wrong. My father told me somebody rang him out of the blue saying they were raising funds for a major children's hospital in order to purchase a scanner. My father asked me how after paying years of tax, he as a retired man was being phoned to be asked to pay for basic facilities in a hospital. There are 13,000 people on waiting lists. Why is the Government not implementing the national carers' strategy and why is there is no national positive aging strategy? We have documents but no action.

The Carers Association has observed that the budget does not go far enough, and full-time carers who do not receive the carers' allowance due to the means test are still left without any financial reward after the budget. I have no doubt we will continue to get representations in this area.

Why is the budget conducted in this way? Why is there no debate in the Chamber in the months leading up to the Estimates and budget, as that is when the Government would get some level of awareness of what is happening beyond the rarefied confines of Government Buildings. It would get an idea of long-term thinking, particularly from the Green Party, of how we need to plan ahead. The Government would also hopefully see the point of our climate change targets Bill, which would set down what needs to be done if we are to ensure our economic well-being, quality of life and survival. We could then plan around our limitations living on a finite planet. The Government seems to think it can buy its way out of every problem but that will not continue. The Stern report stated that unless 1% of global GDP is targeted at climate change, the world will face a recession on a scale that would put the First and Second World Wars in the shade. Is that what the Government wants?

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