John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the changes in the budget to transport tax rates. For some time we have been lobbying for changes to be made to motor tax rates on larger trucks. At least the reduction of the motor tax on larger trucks to €900 will give transport operators a level playing field with their competitors in the United Kingdom and other countries. We received strong representations from hauliers in Wexford, including Ryan Haulage Limited, and from Ms Verona Murphy, president of the Irish Road Haulage Association. They are happy with the changes.

It is welcome that the respite care grant has been restored to its former amount. It was a mean cut at the time. At least the Minister has recognised the importance of this grant. The Acting Chairman, Deputy Liam Twomey, being a doctor, will also recognise the importance of carers being able to take a break.

Other measures announced in the budget fall short of what is required to ensure low-income and vulnerable families are protected from poverty and social exclusion. Several years ago I remember that the then Opposition spoke about the then finance Minister, Charlie McCreevy's famous 11 cuts. If one counts up all the cuts the Government has made over several years, it comes to between 35 and 40. The Government has a long way to go to rescind all of the cuts which have taken place in different areas. It reduced the fuel allowance, abolished the bereavement grant and the telephone allowance; it reduced the income threshold for medical cards for those over 70 years, with entitlements to the household benefits package, including the electricity allowance. The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, when spokesperson on health, said he would abolish prescription charges, but he actually increased them threefold when he was Minister for Health. We have the property tax and the water tax. When added together, they reduce weekly incomes, particularly those of old age pensioners. An old age pensioner recently showed me how all of these cuts came to a €28 a week reduction in his income. The two Ministers involved need to re-examine this and provide for a proper increase.

While I welcome the €3 increase for old age pensioners, many old age pensioners feel it should have been at least €5, while some groups were seeking a €10 increase. Increases should have been given to those on disability allowances and in receipt of invalidity benefits. This is the group that has suffered seriously in recent times. With the Minister of State, Deputy Paul Kehoe, I recently visited a community workshop in Enniscorthy for what I would term our annual accounting of our stewardship. We met 60 service users. It was heartening to see those with disabilities making a case for increases in rent allowance, weekly allowance payments and provision against the lack of transport in rural areas.

A person with a disability has greater costs than others. I have always contended that an extra allowance should be available for a person with a disability who is trying to rent a house. I have made that case to the Minister and community welfare officers. These people feel they have been left behind. Some 600,000 people in Ireland have disabilities. They feel they are not included in the thoughts and views of the Minister or considered in the financial payments he outlined this year and in previous years. This Government is not the only Government to do this. A number of Governments have neglected those with disabilities. I have to declare an interest in that I have a daughter who requires a wheelchair. However, I know people on basic incomes who find it difficult to provide funds and support to a member of their family who has a disability. This area needs to be treated differently to other social welfare areas. The Disability Federation of Ireland recently submitted a document to the Minister outlining its views on what should be available to people with disabilities. Perhaps the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, will look at that document and phase in what these people really need over the next three or four years. If not them, perhaps the next Government after the election, whether it is in November, February, March or some other time would do it. This is an area that needs priority treatment and care.

Deputy Dara Calleary mentioned the housing crisis. I am sure the Acting Chairman, Deputy Liam Twomey, is aware of the housing crisis situation in Wexford. It is hard to believe that in August, there were 158 families in Wexford who were homeless. People talk about homelessness in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and all the major cities, but there has also been a homelessness problem in rural Ireland in recent years. Some 4,000 people are on the housing list in Wexford, which is an increase of 25% in one year. Private contractors in the construction industry are not going to build houses in rural Ireland at present because they will not command a price that will cover the cost of building the houses. We need to return to having local authorities building houses in conjunction with voluntary organisations. In County Wexford, there will be eight houses each built in Wexford town and Gorey this year. No council or local authority house will be built in New Ross or Enniscorthy. I pay tribute to NABCO, a voluntary housing organisation, which came into Enniscorthy and bought approximately 40 houses from NAMA and distributed them to people on the council housing list.

This brings me to NAMA. When I hear the Minister saying NAMA will build 20,000 houses by 2020, I think that if is going to do it, it will have to get rid of the bureaucracy and red tape which currently exists. The 40 houses the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, will be opening on Friday were originally sold to the council. There was so much bureaucracy and red tape in dealing with NAMA, the council pulled out and NABCO eventually purchased the houses. The process took three and a half years. These houses were finished. No work was needed on them and yet it took three and a half years to deal with NAMA. If the Government is depending on NAMA to build houses, many people will remain homeless by 2020. We need to re-establish the housing sections in each local authority and let the local authorities do what they were good at, which was building houses.

As the Acting Chairman will know, in Wexford town, Enniscorthy, Gorey and New Ross, hundreds of houses were built by local authorities between 2002 and 2010. Approximately 400 houses were built in my town of Enniscorthy during that period. The local authorities had expertise, engineering staff and people able to acquire the builders to build the houses. Unfortunately, a change was made. A previous Government, of which I was a member, made the decision to move from local authorities building houses to voluntary housing. This policy has not worked. It is necessary to have a mix of local authority housing and voluntary housing.

It is hard to believe that we have so many homeless people in Wexford and these are only the homeless people we know. Every Deputy in this House knows that a tenant may have a house through the rental accommodation scheme or one that is being rented directly from the client of a bank. The bank seizes the house and the tenant becomes homeless and has to go back to his or her family. In many cases, a wife, husband and two or three children are living in one room in the old family home because that is all the space available to them. We do not hear much about these people, but they exist. For the life of me, I cannot understand why a bank would take back a house, insist the tenant leave and lock up the house and leave it vacant for months until it is sold. There are numerous houses in County Wexford which the banks have repossessed. They are locked up but they have not been sold. The Government should seriously examine the possibility of dealing with these banks to see if the houses, which are available, can be rented or some other deal done to ensure they are available for those who are on the housing list or are homeless.

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