Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this budget. I speak for most people in the country, certainly for this side of the House, when I say there was readiness to take some bad news and hardship if we felt it was to some purpose. What has been most disappointing is that such will not be the case. We, and most commentators expect us to be back here with cuts at least as bad this time next year, if not sooner.

The truth is what was needed was not done. We cut capital spending and borrowed to continue with current spending. Some €4.7 billion is to be borrowed, and God knows to what that will grow as the year progresses. Far from correcting a nose-dive in the economy, this can only make matters worse. Where there was spending, there was no attempt to produce long-term reform to deal with the problems so that we could be in a position to capitalise on any later upturn in the global economy.

FÁS is a case in point. Never will it be more important to be able to up-skill and retrain our workforce, and yet there is a budget of almost €1 billion, largely money contributed by the private sector, that is completely unfocused, hardly relevant and inefficiently spent, and there has been no attempt to reform that organisation.

The investment in infrastructure, particularly in public transport, has been tragically cut again. That means Transport 21 is out the door, probably for another generation or maybe even two. The history of this Government has been a failure of planning and of delivery. There has been no mention of metro. I heard last night that it will remain in the planning stage. It has been in planning for ten years. It will probably be another ten, maybe 20, years before we hear any more about it. The result of all this is that people are even more dependent on their cars, and the Government's solution is to introduce a car parking tax. One could understand this tax if it would make people use public transport, but the reality is it will end up only as a tax on work.

The Government failed to make difficult decisions. It made things difficult for people, but the difficult decisions which only the Government can make were not made.

I will speak about my area of responsibility, arts, sports and tourism, but I am conscious I must say something about the sick, the disabled and the elderly, the easy targets who undoubtedly will be the really big suffers as a result of this budget. These are easy targets because they are not a cohesive group. In any battle for scarce resources they will be the ones the Government can pick off one by one, and it could not resist the opportunity to do so.

Many of my colleagues have spoken eloquently about the removal of entitlement to medical cards from the over 70s. I do not want to go into it, except to state it is the most mean-minded and damaging economy I have ever heard of a government attempting to introduce. It was despicable to hear the Minister for Health and Children try to defend it on the grounds that it was costing a great deal of money, with the money going to doctors. The reason for that is the Government did a bad deal with the doctors. The Government announced the measure before it reached a deal with the doctors, and taxpayers ended up paying more than they should. The Government's solution is to ask old and sick people, who have worked all their lives, contributed to the economy and made the Celtic tiger, to pay for the Government's mistake by the withdrawal of their medical cards.

Thousands of middle income families in my constituency and throughout the country are being targeted in the budget, specifically in the area of health. One measure which has not received a great deal of attention, except in respect of nursing homes, is the decision to reduce tax relief from the marginal rate to the standard rate for medical expenses. This measure is aimed specifically at families who have always paid their own way. They pay for their general practitioner, medicines — for which they will now pay €100 per month — health insurance, the dentist, hospital tests, scans, physiotherapists and every other medical expense. Overnight, the cost of medicine for those families has increased by 20%.

When there are children in a family it is impossible to avoid medical expenses. For most families there are sometimes exceptional medical expenses in respect of at least one member of the family. A number of families contacted me about this measure today, particularly families whose children require orthodontic treatment. For them, the cost of that treatment has increased by 20%. Everybody knows that State-provided orthodontic treatment scarcely exists. The treatment is hugely expensive so a 20% increase will run to thousands of euro. For many families it will no longer be an option. I am not talking about orthodontic treatment for cosmetic purposes but treatment that is essential for psychological or medical reasons. That will no longer be an option. This is one of the measures that has slipped under the carpet but it will emerge as the months pass.

The Taoiseach spoke about the relief for medical expenses this morning as if it was only relevant to nursing homes. All medical expenses will be affected for middle income earners who do not have a medical card. Everybody will be affected. Indeed, the Taoiseach suggested that when the fair deal is introduced it will not be relevant because it will not be required by people going into nursing homes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that if one has been prudent and saved for one's old age, if one has savings in the bank or under the mattress or if one has dividends, shares or a painting on the wall, everything must be spent before one will even become eligible for the fair deal. The fair deal is only relevant to some people, and it is clear that it will not be fair to everybody.

These are the hidden costs of the budget. The Ministers glibly spoke last night about a percentage here and a percentage there but each of these percentages is bitterly felt by families. They will be bitterly felt over the coming months, particularly when added to other taxes, charges and cuts. I warn the Government, and I hope it acts before it happens, that people will die as a result of this. They will forgo medicine and visiting the doctor. It will not be a saving in the long run.

I congratulate the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Deputy Martin Cullen. He distinguished himself as the only Minister who saw a reduction in every budget line for his Department. He is not long in the Department but he has become extremely creative. His press statement yesterday would warrant a prize for creativity. He managed to be the only Minister who compared his Department's allocations for 2009 to those for 2000 to show that somehow there was an increase when, in fact, there was a decrease in each of his Department's budget lines.

Yes, these are hard times and we understood there would be a reduction in spending, but why an all-out assault on the tourism industry? This is incomprehensible. We will require this industry to provide growth in employment and income in the future. It is a service industry. We will not see growth in many other industries such as manufacturing and so forth, which are dying industries to an extent. The service industry is where we must generate growth and foreign exchange. However, a departure tax is purely a revenue raising tax. It has zero policy content. It will not just apply to Irish people leaving the country but people who come to this country, who will be charged when they leave. We should be incentivising people to come to this country, not picking their pockets as they leave.

This will also impact on the aviation sector, which is already a marginal industry with operators barely keeping their heads above water. Ryanair has threatened to pull out of Shannon Airport because its fares will effectively double as a result of this charge. It is the whammy Aer Lingus certainly did not need. The Government is trying to persuade people to vote for the EU and says the Union is based on the fundamental tenet of free movement of people, but I do not know if this tax is legal within the EU. When one combines transport costs, VAT, holiday home taxes and 50 cent on a bottle of wine with reduced marketing, it is hard to believe the Government has an appreciation of the importance of the tourism industry. Watch the holiday home tax. This year it is €200, next year it will be €400 and, mark my words, the year after it will be on all homes.

The Minister tried to tell us there is a minuscule reduction in funding for the Arts Council, scarcely 1%. In fact, the reduction is 12%. Jobs will be lost. Jobs in the arts are marginal anyway and they will go. This will impact not only on the indigenous industry, but also on tourism as festivals and performances are hit. Sport is affected in every budget line and crucial funding for the Sports Council has also been savaged. In the area of capital spending, all the investment in the cultural institutions, which are already on the bread line, has been cut to ribbons. Many of these institutions are in such a condition that we will be lucky if they do not burn to the ground in the next couple of years.

Funding for the national sports campus has been reduced by one third, despite the massive expansion that was announced by successive Ministers. That appears to have evaporated into the ether, along with the former Taoiseach whose legacy and monument it was to be. All one can see out there is a couple of offices. This has been a budget of cuts, taxes and charges, with no strategy, tactic or policy content. It is just a holding exercise until the next swingeing budget.

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