Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a pity that the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, had to run away and hide in the corridors. He is afraid to come back to debate. It is not the first time he ran away.

Ireland is in a very difficult posiion. It is important to examine the details of this budget in a professional and independent manner. I represent the constituency of Dublin Bay North and my agenda has always been to put the issues affecting the lives and quality of life of my constituents at the heart of my politics. If a budget is not about people's lives, we are going nowhere. The issues of job creation, health, education, disability services and the care of senior citizens must be at the top of the political agenda.

The details of this seventh-hour budget show that it hits the sick, the old, the disabled, young mothers and jobless young people. It is also a blitz on the poor and more about vote grabs with gimmicks and stunts for future elections. We saw the recent attempt at a power grab in the Seanad referendum and the waste of €14 million on the Taoiseach's pet project. It was a waste of public money, while millions of euro are taken from services. Disability services in St. Michael's House and Prosper Fingal services in Swords lost €12 million. Parents and staff are crying out for support and sick with worry. The other side of the House should not praise this budget as a good or fair one. They should not say they are protecting the vulnerable. The budget includes cuts in the jobseeker's allowance for under 25s; maternity benefit is to be reduced to €230 a week for new claimants; the income thresholds for the over 70s medical card have been lowered; the telephone allowance has been discontinued; there will be a 41% DIRT rate and the abolition of the €850 bereavement grant. These are the real issues in the budget and it is not fair. I challenge the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, and Deputy Noel Harrington. This horror budget hits the sick, the old, the disabled and young mothers. It hits jobless young people and pensions. It is a blitz on the poor. It is said the saving of €113 million on medical cards will not impact on senior citizens. There is the money to throw at pet projects, yet tonight in Beaumont Hospital there are queues and there is no bed available in the accident and emergency department. Where are the big ideas and the vision for the country? There is none. I will not take lectures from the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring. He was one of the ringleaders in respect of the figure of €3.1 billion which eventually came down to €2.5 billion. The under 25s were hammered.

Overall, this is a mean and miserable budget and the Disability Federation of Ireland shares my view. It has expressed its disappointment at the Government's failure to protect people with disabilities and their families. It is also disappointed to see the €113 million savings from medical cards and the abolition of the telephone allowance. At this late stage I ask the Minister and the Government to consider the promises made in the programme for Government, the commitment to disability services made by both parties prior to the general election when they stated they would be their top social justice priority. I refer to the publication last July of the national disability strategy implementation plan. These are the issues I want to push in this debate as they are important to people. There is a growing gap between the demand for services and the resources available to meet this demand and further cuts have caused it to widen even further. It is time to stop the budget cuts and begin to bridge the gap that threatens to undermine essential disability services.

Disability organisations have experience of reduced expenditure in the past three years. Waiting lists for essential residential care, respite care and other support services have grown significantly in the past six years, while budgets have also been reduced. Service providers continue to do everything possible to minimise costs and maximise efficiencies and the Government has the brass neck to talk about job creation.

The State wants to change the budget format to suit EU deadlines. The Minister and the Government should wake up and smell the coffee. Jobs will be destroyed and businesses placed under massive pressure if they are forced to file early tax returns next year to suit the new budget timetable. This budget is the first under the new European rules which demand that all member states publish their draft budgets by 15 October and that they be finalised by the end of the year. Some 600,000 people are expected to file tax returns by the end of this month, with self-employed persons accounting for more than 40% of this number. In order to meet this new deadline, the Department of Finance wants to bring forward the pay and file date in order that officials have all the information needed to finalise the earlier budget. The date proposed is either the end of June or mid-September. The Chartered Accountants of Ireland has argued this would create significant cash flow difficulties for self-assessed taxpayers who are typically small, home grown businesses. Early tax payment dates will increase the cash flow pressure on small businesses. I warn the Minister and the Government that more jobs will be lost.

I refer to the household package announced by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin. In order to reduce costs, he decided to discontinue the telephone allowance for all recipients from 1 January 2014. This measure will save in the region of €44 million. The rate of maternity benefit will be standardised at €230 a week for new claimants from January 2014. This will save €30 million. The number of waiting days for entitlement to illness benefit is being increased from three to six, which it is claimed will save €22 million. These are the issues. The Minister also said it was planned to include social procurement contract clauses in schools capital works projects for the first time to ensure a proportion of the workforce would be drawn from the long-term unemployed. I welcome this proposal. The late Deputy Tony Gregory proposed a similar measure about 20 years ago in the House. Someone is listening at long last.

Let them claim credit, but the late Tony Gregory was one of the first to suggest it.

I notice Priory Hall was mentioned in yesterday's Budget Statement, and I welcome the resolution of the issue. It was a sad day for Ireland when it took the death of Mr. Fiachra Daly and a heartfelt plea to the Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny, from Mr. Daly's partner, Ms Stephanie Meehan, to get movement on the matter. I am one of many who raised the issue repeatedly in the Dáil and we were ignored, so it took somebody's death to bring the Government to deal with the matter.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, yesterday stated:

Ireland's corporate tax strategy has three key elements: rate, reputation and regime. The tax rate is settled policy. We are 100% committed to the 12.5% corporation tax rate. This will not change.

I support this, but the Government should collect the 12.5% in tax and stop codding the people. The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed has expressed its dismay about some of the policies in the budget, and we must also deal with homelessness. Housing demand in Dublin is increasing and rents in the capital are up 5%; rent allowance for single people does not cover the average rental cost in Dublin.

It is important to deal with facts. There was no effort to row back last year's cut to the respite grant. The Government has hammered the families of people with physical and intellectual disabilities. It had the opportunity to act this year, as all the groups made lobbying efforts and we put questions in the Dáil. There have been other cuts, as exemplified by the 763 children waiting six months or more for assessment of need under the Disability Act and a 15% reduction in resource teaching hours last year. There are 1,900 children waiting for assessment by a primary care occupational therapists, and there are 34,000 waiting for speech and language therapy. We are talking about the real world but the Ministers in the Cabinet seem to be ignoring it. This budget hammered the elderly, the sick, the young unemployed, the disabled and young mothers. There is no big idea or vision in the budget, and there is nothing in it for the future or the people of the country.

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