Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

I want to touch on a few points. On the Social Welfare Bill, I welcome and acknowledge the fact that the Minister for Social Protection is withdrawing sections 8 to 10, inclusive, dealing with disability allowance and domiciliary care allowance. I acknowledge the work done by the Minister in this regard and the discussions that have taken place with Fine Gael Members and other parties on this issue. It is a welcome move that shows the Government is listening and takes on board people's concerns. I welcome that Ita Mangan of the Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare is carrying out a review of this measure. It takes away the anxiety of young people with disabilities and their families. I acknowledge the work done by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, in this regard. I have a significant personal interest in people with disabilities. When we considered this measure, and spoke to the people involved and their families, it was clear that we needed to put the measure on hold and carry out a review.

By definition making an adjustment of €3.8 billion in a budget will be hard on people. In those circumstances we need to come up with a budget that is as fair as possible. It will always be difficult with €1.4 billion in cuts in current expenditure as I am sure the Minister for Social Protection will acknowledge. We have tried to make it as fair as possible and we will continue to strive to do so during our time in government.

I welcome the value for money review of the community employment schemes as any reduction would be of concern to the people involved in such schemes which do very good work. The context of the budget is simple: we need to get people back to work. I heard some Deputies mention lone parents. Many lone parents who want to get jobs come to all our constituency offices. We need to reform the system - the Minister has started to do so - to allow them to get back into work. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that labour activation measures - with €20 million going into a fund - work in a more efficient way and are more streamlined to cater for the needs of lone parents and people with disabilities. We need to ensure that people with disabilities get the best possible opportunities to work. I have no doubt all Members of the House will agree with these proposals. Fundamentally people have an entitlement to work. There are more than 400,000 people unemployed - either full-time or part-time. The key focus is to get labour activation measures going, get growth in the economy and get people back to work.

Unfortunately as a country we cannot borrow independently on the world markets and are dependent on an IMF-EU programme to get funds to pay social welfare and public sector wages, and pay for public services. There are constraints and while we are in a difficult space at the moment, growth has returned. I worked as an accountant in the private sector for many years. It is about stimulating the private sector and getting jobs going. Even though it is a very harsh budget, it contains many good measures which have been overlooked. We have delivered on our general election and programme for Government commitment not to raise income tax rates or change tax credits. We have not touched primary social welfare payments meaning that people have certainty in that regard. We have increased the exemption limit for the universal social charge from €4,004 to €10,036 thereby benefiting 330,000 people. It should be acknowledged that that is a good measure, which improves the changes of people getting into work.

On mortgage interest relief, whether right or wrong, many young couples and single people bought houses at greatly inflated prices between 2004 and 2008. Many of them felt forced to get on the property ladder because if they did not get on the property ladder they would not be able to buy a home. Many of them bought apartments in the expectation that they would appreciate in value and many of them now cannot afford to pay their mortgages. We have honoured our commitment to increase mortgage interest relief to 30% for first-time buyers who bought houses between 2004 and 2008.

I keep coming back to the jobs area. For business, we have improved research and development tax credits, provided the partial loan guarantee scheme which will free up credit for the SME sector and introduced the micro-finance fund. We will continue tax exemption for start-up companies, which was a good measure introduced by the previous Government, for another three years.

We are an agriculture-based nation. There is now an incentive for people to pass farms on to the younger generation. We need to get people to continue to stay on the land and these are good measures.

In the jobs initiative that we introduced earlier in the year, we reduced the VAT rate for tourism-based items and halved the employer's PRSI rate for people on lower pay, which are positive incentives.

When we are taking €1.4 billion from current expenditure, it will be a harsh budget on people. We are trying to make it fair and the thrust of the budget in terms of policy and theme is to get people back to work. We need to reform the social welfare system to make it a labour activation fund. People should regard it as a temporary measure allowing them the opportunity to get jobs into the future and thereby get out of the poverty trap.

I acknowledge the positive work the Minister has done in withdrawing the proposed change to disability allowance for young persons and having a review carried out on it. The key thing is to get people back to work.

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