Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I hope I can use my ten minutes as well as him. I propose to share time with Deputies Ferris and Catherine Murphy.

Our task is to be aware of where we can go from here. No one denies or laments the major economic success of this country. As politicians, we should not preen ourselves and be blinded by self-righteousness in taking credit for how we got here. Rather, we should examine where we want to go from here and the values underpinning how we spend our money. That job remains undone. The political question is what to do with our economic success. These values can be determined by how we care for the weakest in society and whether we value caring, such as a someone raising children or a child caring for an elderly person. This Government did not value such work in the budget.

We must maintain the economic prosperity that we are fortunate to experience. As a Member who shadows the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I am concerned by the statistics of the past ten years regarding output and exports from the indigenous services and manufacturing sector. There is a worrying decline. I welcome the proposals to encourage such enterprise, particularly the extension of the business expansion scheme, BES, and the increase in the amount one can invest in it. I also welcome measures that encourage small business, such as alterations to the VAT threshold and easing the regulations.

The Government has decided, with the support of the Opposition, to invest in research and development. Why has this not led to increased licences, product development or exports from the indigenous sector? This should be the primary concern for any politician. We should amend policies to ensure we receive a return on our investment. There is no sense of that in the budget. No change is planned in Enterprise Ireland or elsewhere to signal concern at evolving trends. We have failed to develop an enterprise economy. I do not take pride or pleasure in this fact; it is the reality based on these statistics. We have had a property economy based on the tax breaks provided over the past ten years. The concern is that property growth could put the economy under pressure if it decreases.

I regret that there was no reform of the stamp duty regime. I do not refer to the fundamental reform sought by the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, regarding the abolition of stamp duty. However, the system could have been amended to allow a more functional property market with social benefits. The Green Party has proposed the amendment of the property system to allow those trading from a larger to smaller property to avail of a lower rate of stamp duty. I have yet to hear a strong argument from the Department of Finance or the Minister as to why this would not work. I do not believe it would lead to any inflationary pressures in the housing market as it would only bring about an increased supply of those types of family houses abundant in my constituency, close to shops, bus routes and schools, but which do not have young families in them. They are very expensive.

Anything that would free up the supply in that end of the housing market, which would be the consequence of the move I have outlined, would have significant benefits and take some of the heat from the property market. There is an over-reliance on that market as a wealth-generating sector, and to take some of the heat from it would be fundamentally beneficial to the development of our economy.

The other long-term threat glaringly clear to anybody with any sense of analysis of the next ten, 20 or 30 years relates to the future energy scenario for this country. Two factors require action from any reasonable and responsible Government. The first is the simple and clear realisation, the geological certainty that we are facing a peak in global oil production which will be followed by a steady 2% to 3% per annum reduction in oil supplies. As this country relies on oil for 60% of its energy needs, this is a fundamental priority that should be addressed.

The US Department of Energy commissioned a report which stated clearly that such a peak should be addressed two decades in advance in order to change the economy's infrastructure to suit this new post-peak oil production. There is nothing in the Government's budget, the Green Paper on sustainable energy or any of the strategies being prepared by the Government that recognises such a reality. I note with interest that the budget is able to include provisions for pensions going forward to 2050, which I laud. It should be equally possible for us to look forward to an energy future to 2050 and to begin extrapolating budgetary policy to address it.

Possibly a more profound energy change facing us is the way in which our current burning of such fossil fuels is changing the climate on which we all depend. The Irish perspective may be that a rise of a degree or two in temperature might not be too bad, but that is only until one's house is flooded or we see people starving in Africa. There are 150,000 dying each year, as calculated by the World Health Organisation, because of that climate change which we, among other developed countries, are causing.

The Government is not being honest with the Irish people on what is needed in this area. As part of the European Union it has signed up in recent climate change negotiations to at least a 15% reduction in 1990 emission levels by 2020. I can only describe the Minister for Finance's environmental section of the budget as honest, and it is clear that rather than reducing emissions we are continuing to let them increase and trying to buy our way out of the problem. Such an approach is morally bankrupt, with the country on the one hand committing to cut emissions by 15% below 1990 levels by 2020 and on the other hand following policies which we know will lead us 30% above those levels in 2010. These are simple bald statistics about what we are committing to, what is right to do and what is actually being done. They put the Irish people in a morally impossible and financially reckless position.

The €270 million committed in the budget for us to buy out carbon emissions to 2012 is actually a fraction of what the final bill could be. The figure is based on a hypothesis that the climate change policies of the Minister for the Environment and Local Government and the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resource will achieve something, but nothing has been achieved in the past ten years.

See this speech in context