Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

I will proceed to specific issues that arise from the budget. We had a good rehearsal of the issues surrounding health this morning. I stated yesterday evening that this was a rough budget and that it was particularly rough on the elderly. This, as we all know, implies that people over 70 are to lose their medical cards. This was debated this morning and I will not elaborate on it.

The Tánaiste offered the Members on the Opposition benches tutorials to inform them of the issues. She said the matter was very simple and that the €100 million comprised €86 million paid to doctors and €30 million paid to chemists. The sums of €86 million and €30 million amount to a little more than €100 million and, therefore, one wonders who needs the tutorials. It is a rough-hewn budget and there is no doubt but that it was thrown together. Ministers are unable to explain its details in the House or answer the questions being put legitimately by the Opposition.

I have two local issues to raise, the first of which is the impact of the travel tax on Shannon Airport. I do not understand why the cut-off point for the €2 travel tax was pitched at 300 km. If one is travelling from Dublin Airport to Blackpool, Cardiff, Glasgow, the Isle of Man or Manchester, one pays €2 but if one is travelling out of Shannon to any airport in the United Kingdom, one must pay €10. A Government that is supposed to be committed to regional policy should not apply travel taxes in an arbitrary fashion such as this. The only place to which one can travel from Shannon for €2 is Dublin Airport. One can make all the internal flights from Dublin for €2 and one can also go to the aforementioned locations in the United Kingdom. This information is in the summary to the budget. It seems the Ministers from my side of the country were asleep on their watch because they do not seem to stand up for the interests of the region, even in respect of issues such as this, where a clear competitive disadvantage is being written into the budget.

My final question is for the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley. There was great publicity surrounding the new regeneration programme for Limerick city. North side and south side agencies were to change the face of the city and enormous sums of money were committed. I have searched the 2009 Estimates and the only Vote I can find related to this matter is Vote 25. Under subhead H3, it is stated that €20,153,000 was allocated for urban regeneration in 2008, principally in Dublin. The allocation for 2009 has decreased to a notional sum of €1 million, which represents a reduction of approximately 95%. Is the Limerick regeneration project to be stopped or is it to be funded in some other fashion that is not transparent in the Estimates? Is there some kind of block grant being allocated to the local authorities? There is certainly no money in the regeneration Vote in the budget and there is no statement that corresponds to the promises made. There are people whose houses are literally being knocked down and we need capital funds to replace them in the parts of the city that are affected.

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