Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Buttimer got what he wished for, but maybe he does not wish for what he got. The problem with the budget is that it does not provide a stimulus. The Government took the easy option of cutting capital expenditure, but some capital expenditure can be self-financing. It increased VAT, an easy option, but not one that will stimulate consumer confidence. The irony is that VAT and the takings from it have been very sensitive to the mood of the people, as one would expect, but what has the Government done but made their mood worse.

I often hear Deputies talk about more schools and hospitals, which are badly needed in terms of capital expenditure. However, they should realise that if moneys are spent on something that is 100% State funded, they must come up with the gross amount of money less whatever tax take would arise from the construction itself. However, there are other types of social expenditure that could be self-financing and that could give us a long-term saving into the future. As spokesperson on energy, I could give perfect examples from the energy sector. Despite what the Department of Finance will say about dead weight, if we give a 35% grant to somebody to upgrade a house thermally, it is easy to prove that between the VAT, PAYE and PRSI take and the removal of people from the live register, we get more back in taxes and savings than is spent on the 35% grant. However, whatever small work is happening in the building trade of that type currently, a large amount of it is happening in the black economy. Therefore, we are not getting any PAYE, PRSI or VAT take and we are also paying the dole in the case of many of those carrying out that work. I used to have this argument with the Department of Finance when I was in Government, but it never seemed to be able to grasp it. The standard argument it made referred to what it called dead weight. In other words, my argument was fine in theory. The person was spending €10,000 on upgrading, €3,500 of which was coming in the form of a grant from Government, which was then getting back in taxes more than it put in. The only argument - a weak argument - the Department could give against that was the dead weight argument, saying that people would have made those improvements anyway. However, people are not doing these things currently. Anybody with a connection with any small builders around the country can tell us they have no work.

If we put significant money into such a scheme, on a self-financing basis, our homes would be much more comfortable. The Department could work out exactly the level of grant that could be given to ensure the scheme would be self-financing. Providing such a scheme would help us achieve our Kyoto targets, mean we would not have to buy carbon credits and would reduce the amount of oil imported into the country and give us a hedge against rising oil prices.

One thing that astounded me with regard to the Labour Party's part in this budget was the refusal to increase taxes on the wealthy. There is no significant increase in the burden on the wealthy in the budget. The burden in this budget is on the least well off and the middle income groups. There is often talk about what Fianna Fáil did when in Government and it is important to put it on the record now. We raised the higher rate of tax. Taking into account the USC and tax, we raised tax by 12% in the past three years. We covered all income with the USC. In other words, it covers all income, including that going into superannuation. We also reduced tax breaks dramatically, both the amount that could be put into them and the tax break given for investments. We increased the minimum effective tax rate for high net worth earners using tax shelters for their income. Compare this to what has happened this year. No significant burden has been placed on those at the top, but significant burdens have been placed on those who cannot carry the burden.

To return to the current position and what we are spending, sometimes listening to politicians would make one think we had gone back to the expenditure levels of 2000, 1997, 1986, 1985 or somewhere back in the dark ages. It is interesting to note that the gross voted expenditure in 2006 was €50 billion and in 2007, total gross voted expenditure on services was €56 billion. In 2011, we spent €57.704 billion - in other words, gross voted expenditure was higher in 2011 than in 2007 when everybody said we were at the height of the Celtic tiger years. In 2012, it will be €55.815 billion. We are still well ahead and are closer to the 2007 than the 2006 figures.

It is interesting to look at social protection. We increased social protection expenditure when in government. In 2006, it was €13 billion, in 2007, it was €15 billion and in 2011, it was €20 billion. In 2012, it will be €20.542 billion. Despite all the cuts which have been implemented, it will only drop a little bit next year because there is no control on the unemployment situation. When one looks at the social protection figure it is interesting that it is caused in part by the increase in the live register but mostly by increased numbers of pensions, increased rates of payment and dramatic improvement in schemes, such as carer's allowance.

That brings me to the question of unemployment. There was nothing in the budget for the unemployed, lone parents or people on disability. The other night the Taoiseach told us the unemployment problem would not be solved for some considerable time. I accept that in terms of commercial employment, it will be a long haul back and it will not happen overnight, although we could be doing a lot more to ensure something happens. I accept there are a lot of people on the live register who are not unemployed but who are part-time employees, seasonal workers and so on. The core figure of long-term unemployed is 200,000. Can we accept that we are saying to them to stay at home and do nothing and that if they do something, we will reduce their payments? I do not believe that is socially acceptable. One of the things which struck me when I went into the Department of Social Protection was a two page document given to me by the chief medical officer which showed the detrimental effect of unemployment on people's health, in particular mental health. I hope people in this House sometime listen and take on board ideas that need action.

For years, the Department Social Protection resisted any money being transferred to it from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to put people on schemes and release them from the nightmare of not being allowed to do anything in return for their payments. Departments would wear anybody out and they fought the battle to stop the transfer of the money year in, year out.

Brian Cowen, as Taoiseach, appointed me Minister for Social Protection and transferred all of the employment schemes to the Department of Social Protection because I had argued for this for years. The idea was quite simple - it was to get over the bailiwicking that happens between Departments and to say to the Department of Social Protection that it could look at its €5 billion in unemployment payments in tandem with the €0.5 billion expenditure on schemes and that it would be a good idea to take €1 billion from unemployment payments and put it into the schemes and allow all of those who want to go on schemes or to stay on schemes to do so.

We had teed all of this up. We set up the Tús programme which, I am willing to admit, took people off social welfare on a cost neutral basis because certain costs were associated with the community employment schemes which were not associated with the Tús scheme. My idea was that over time, one would go on to a community employment scheme to be trained. However, there is only so much training a person can absorb. At the end of the training period of say three years, instead of doing what we do, throwing people back on the scrap heap, we could move them on to the Tús scheme. There is not a Deputy here who has not had endless numbers of people begging him or her to be left on a community employment scheme, small as the financial gain is to them.

The Minister mentioned €20 million in total for activation. She is sitting on €5 billion of a gold mine of money and people with plenty of skills. We have never had as many unemployed people with skills. She could have transferred some of that money over and given people an opportunity to provide all sorts of services our communities need. All of us know of the heritage centres which we cannot keep open, of the community centres we cannot staff and use to their full potential and of all the other community services we need. All we need is a little bit of imagination within the existing budget.

As I said, the hard work was done because we had done the transfer before the Minister came in. I was very disappointed to hear the 5,000 places on the Tús scheme, for which I was derided last year as not being sufficient, have not yet been filled. I said when I filled the 5,000 places, I would get more.

I will speak on social welfare in detail the next day but this budget, when one accumulates all the different aspects, is anti-family, anti-rural, anti-women and anti-disability and I will come back to that again.

It has also done extraordinary things in regard to mortgages, for example. There is a saying "He giveth with one hand, he taketh with the other".

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