Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Technical Group for allowing me some speaking time. I like to call a spade a spade. This budget clearly is an election budget. It was created because of the local and European elections back in May. The Fine Gael and Labour Party backbenchers who have been in a coma in the House for the past three and half years woke up. The members of the Government have woken up in recent days because of the results of the by-elections. They woke up when they saw hundreds of thousands of people marching over water charges. They decided finally that we are shoving near an election and that this may be their last budget so they tried to buy the electorate. I put it to those in government that this budget is not going to buy the electorate. If they think they can fool people by headlining items such as €5 per month increase in the children's allowance, they are wrong. This is emerging at a time when struggling families are going to be faced with an additional tax, the Government's water tax. The one thing the Government missed with this water tax was not making an allowance for inability to pay. The last-minute changes that the Government has made in recent days on the water charges only came about because of the results of elections and the protests. That is the only language this Government understands. I am glad that the people are giving those in government what they deserve, that is, a good hammering and a good kicking.

I saw backbenchers standing up in the House earlier talking about how they welcomed some elements of this budget.

They are in a coma and completely miss the point. Every family in this country will be worse off after this week because of the water charges. The Government could not even get that right. It still cannot tell people how much they will have to pay. The amount is changing every day.

With regard to what backbenchers do in this Government, they must be very careful. It appears that if they speak out against the Taoiseach, they can find themselves the victims of a witch hunt. It happened recently to one of the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey's, colleagues. It is not very nice to think that we are living in such a dictatorship that if somebody dares to speak out against the Taoiseach of the day and if the Taoiseach has some information about that person, he will use it. That is what happened in the past few days to one of Deputy Coffey's colleagues. That was disgraceful. It was raised in the House today by Deputy Martin, and rightly so. If that happened under some other leader or in some other country, we would call it disgraceful. Just because it is the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, who creates a leak and tries to put the boot into one of his own party members, it is still disgraceful. However, that is what we are living with at present.

What is in this budget for the tens of thousands of young people who had to leave this country in search of work? Unfortunately, one of the Government Ministers said on the local radio in my native county a number of weeks ago that, in his opinion, no person left this country because they had to but because they wanted to do so. It was a choice. That is absolute rubbish and bunkum. The people I know who left this country did not want to go. They would have preferred to have stayed in their own country with their families if they could have secured gainful employment, but they could not. That a Government Minister would say they left out of choice is also disgraceful.

There are incentives in the budget for farming, in the hope of getting young people interested in expanding and acquiring more land through long-term leases and so forth. However, the Government has neglected one matter, and the Minister of State should be more aware of this than others. It is that land is of no use unless one can make money from it. Consider the price of beef at present and how owners of suckler herds are struggling and holding on by their fingertips. That is a crisis but, again, the Government is doing nothing about it.

With regard to the housing crisis, I have studied the budget figures for the housing the Government hopes to build. It is a drop in the ocean. In Killarney, County Kerry, there are more than 1,000 people on the housing waiting list. If the Government were to decide tomorrow morning that every incentive in the budget with regard to housing would all be focused on County Kerry, it still would not address that county's housing problem. It is ridiculous. The Government did not deal with this problem in the past number of years but now, because of the election, it thinks it will cod the people by saying it will do something about it.

I listened carefully to the remarks about the proposed ending of the embargo on public sector recruitment. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform said the Government will do this in a targeted and focused way. I will decode that and put it in plain English. The Government will use it as an election tool. It will decide where it thinks it should focus recruitment and where it will be most beneficial to its parties when they are facing the next general election. I have no doubt that is correct. That is what the Minister meant when he said it would be in a targeted and focused way. The Government will target it to win votes for its respective parties.

Where is the good in this budget for nurses who are struggling in our hospitals at present, doing the work of two and three people every day? There is no light at the end of the tunnel for such people. There is also no light at the end of the tunnel for members of An Garda Síochána, who are really struggling. These are people who have what would be considered good, full-time jobs but they are struggling every week because they cannot make ends meet.

There is also the issue of the carer's allowance. When people apply for carer's allowance to take care of an elderly person, friend or relative, they must wait months to have the allowance paid. There is nothing in this budget for those categories of people.

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