Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

I propose to share time with Deputy Michael Ring.

This is the eve of the most significant budget in the short history of the country. We are debating Estimates, some of which are revenue neutral, across a range of Departments. The Minister for Defence, Deputy Willie O'Dea, referred to a number of issues including Vote 30, dealing with the underpayment of €2.4 million to RTE in respect of licence fee receipts. The Minister described this as a reconciliation exercise but it seems to have taken nine years. My colleagues, including the Fine Gael spokesperson on this area, Deputy Simon Coveney, raised this matter at the Oireachtas committee meeting. Why did it take nine years for this reconciliation exercise to take place? This is listed as a debtor in the RTE accounts but the Exchequer accounts are done on a cash receipts and cash payments basis and this will have an impact of €2.4 million, affecting other areas of expenditure this year. If there was a dispute with RTE about licence fees in respect of social welfare recipients, why did it take this length of time and why did we not pay this sum when we could afford it? The Minister should clarify this.

The Minister made reference to Votes 19, 20 and 22. Vote 20 was altered to cater for approximately 400 retirements from the Garda Síochána. That figure has now doubled to 800. In the constituency the Minister shares with me, Limerick East, the number of inspectors has dropped from 11 in June of this year to five or six by the end of this month. This is a major issue because it is important to retain people with a wealth of knowledge about fighting crime. This applies throughout Ireland but I refer to Limerick because I am a Deputy for that constituency and the Minister has great knowledge about this and has spoken about the area. What does the Government intend to do to ensure that we do not lose more front line staff, particularly in policing and the Department of Defence?

The same group of Votes refers to a surplus of €12 million and relocating budgets to meet overruns in the demand-led areas of criminal legal aid and asylum accommodation. Comparing the current year to last year, some €50,000 more is spent every day this year on asylum seeker accommodation, on top of €40,000 per day more in respect of 2008. What measures does the Minister propose to reduce the cost of asylum seeker accommodation? Leave to remain applications take up to seven years to process. Fine Gael proposed a range of measures to deal with this issue and I ask the Minister to refer to them.

The temporary employment subsidy scheme under Vote 34 was announced in the last budget. It has not been successful and has not worked for employers who wanted to retain employees. It was extremely restrictive because it applied only to export-led businesses. I welcome the new scheme for which applications must be made by 23 December because it relaxes the criteria, but I am worried that it does not meet the requirements. We, in Fine Gael, have put forward two schemes, a workshare scheme under which we would pay two thirds of any wages that employees would lose by working reduced hours, to ensure that employers can keep them in place, and an internship programme under which people could combine academic work with work experience.

The various committees have discussed these Estimates at length. Why did the reconciliation leading to the €2.4 million payment to RTE take nine years? Why was it not paid during the good times rather than putting extreme pressure on other areas of expenditure in the current climate? What plans are in place to ensure that we do not lose front line people at the rate we are losing them from the Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces? How does the Government expect the second phase of the temporary employment subsidy scheme to work? Does it think that extending it beyond the export area will work? We must ensure that when budgets are brought in, targets are reached. How can the ordinary man understand why the €2.4 million settlement of the dispute between RTE and the Departments of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and Social and Family Affairs, for payments dating back to 1999, is being made now when every euro is needed in the economy?

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