Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We opposed many of the Deputy's party's policies and I will get into that in a while. We did not agree with Fianna Fáil's idea of loading everything onto work. Work must pay. We believe in structural reforms and broadening the tax base. We do not believe that one should just cut the blind pension twice, heap a load of taxes on work and say one has done the job. We have different views on that, but there is no doubt that the Irish people through both our Governments made a number of sacrifices. We are now at a point where we can look to the future, plan ahead and be hopeful for our country, communities and families.

Absolutely no one in the Government is suggesting that everything is rosy. It is clearly not. After years of economic crisis and the taking out of €30 billion from the economy over several years, our services need investment and our people need a break. Our spring economic statement shows that we, as a people, can look forward to our public services receiving more funding in key areas like education, health, child care, disability services and frontline policing. We can look forward to Irish people seeing more money in their pockets. For too long, many people in this country have justifiably felt that it nearly did not pay to work. They were getting up in the morning, slogging away day in and day out, working harder than ever before but when the pay slip arrived, they saw barely enough to make ends meet. We began the process of rectifying that in the last budget and every worker in the country who pays income tax or USC or both saw an increase in take home pay. That is a statement of fact. It was small in many cases but still the first increase in a long time. We need to build on that. No one will disagree that we need to collect taxes to run the country. Public services have to be paid for. However, there is no doubt that the current USC situation is penal for many hard-working families with the 7% rate kicking in on all income above €17,000. That puts a huge dent in the family pay packet. We have been working to take people out of the Fianna Fáil USC. We have reduced the two lower rates and by the end of this year, 500,000 people who paid USC when we came to office will no longer pay it at all. That is important. It is a large statistic and behind it are many families that will not have to pay anymore. We need to make sure that we reduce the burden on those families paying 7% of their income in USC. This needs to be addressed. The current level is penal. Work must pay and people must see economic recovery in their pockets. The 7% rate and the point at which it kicks in are important issues that must be considered in advance of the budget in October.

We need to take more action in the area of mortgage arrears, a subject in respect of which we had a very good debate in the House last night. The Government has committed to doing so. Of mortgage holders, 85% are paying their mortgage each month on time and in full. We have brought in a range of measures to help those in arrears and seen a fall in the numbers in arrears as shown by the Central Bank statistics, but there is more to do. We see a cohort of people who are in arrears of two years or more. It is a difficult cohort with difficult cases that need to be addressed. Very shortly, the Government will unveil more measures to help those in long term arrears. It will be in the coming weeks. I am pleased that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, outlined to the House that he will shortly meet with the heads of all the main banks in Ireland in relation to the standard variable rate for mortgage holders. The banks need to reduce these rates and need to do so quickly. We need a strong banking system and a functioning mortgage system, but we also need fairness. The current standard variable rates are too high and out of line. I look forward to the Central Bank's advice when it reports on this very shortly and the banks must act based on that information.

One of the very exciting things we saw in the statement yesterday and in the Minister's speech to the House was that our young people can now begin to come home. As the youngest member of the House, I want to see my generation and other generations return home. So many of my friends, schoolmates and people from my community found themselves forced to leave our country to find work over the last several years. It is high time we brought them home. That is why we must work relentlessly to keep creating more jobs. They must know there is a job in this country if and when they wish to come home. I welcome the fact that the spring economic statement shows that 43,000 new jobs will be created this year alone and that next year more than 2 million people will be at work in our economy. According to the statistics in our documents, more people in Ireland will be at work in 2020 than ever before. There will be a job here for anyone who wants one and for any person wanting to come back home. This needs to be coupled with the availability of housing, mortgages and good public services. We can now plan in these spaces again.

I wish to comment in particular on disability services. This is an issue I have had a personal, family and community involvement in before I entered the House. There is a serious concern about disability services among Members on all sides of the House. While Members are well intentioned, the debate in the House over time has tended to be about the level of a payment or funding to an organisation. I am not naive and understand that levels of payment and funding are important. However, reform is also important. It is about ensuring that the money we put into disability services gets to people with disabilities. That is why we need to see a move towards individualised budgeting. We need to see that the money the House allocates to people with disabilities gets there and is not lost in bureaucracies and management structures. I hope that as we begin, as the spring statement says we can, to invest in services again, we learn from the mistakes of the past. In fairness to the last Government, there is no disputing the fact that it put a great deal of extra money into disability and special needs education. I acknowledge that and the good intentions behind it, but I hope there is agreement on all sides of the House that we must ensure the money is well used. We do not want to go back to a situation of hiking up the level of funding without checking that people with disabilities are benefitting. We must ensure that no one is left behind. Behind the full employment statistics in the past were hidden a number of people who were out of work due to illness or disability. Many of them wanted jobs but the necessary supports were not in place. We had the supported employment day - the IASE Job Shadow Day - last week and Government will shortly publish a comprehensive employment strategy. We need to ensure that when we talk about full employment we mean employment for every citizen, including citizens with disabilities.

I want to touch on some areas of specific responsibility within my ministerial area in the time available. In relation to public procurement, I note that the public sector has substantial purchasing power, spending in the region of €8.5 billion each year on goods and services, or approximately €23 million per day, in addition to expenditure on public works. This expenditure is funded by the Irish taxpayer and represents a very significant portion of overall Government spending. As such, it is only right that we have a proper and robust system in place ensuring the taxpayer gets value for money and supporting growth and SMEs.

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