Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have another opportunity to reply to some measures included in the budget and thank everyone for his or her co-operation. Last night someone said the budget was like a light shower of snow over a farm, that there was no great amount in anyone's pocket or any one field. This is the best description I can use because there was a little for everyone, for which we must be thankful, in fairness. I have been in the House for many years and this is the first budget I can remember in which we are able to give something. It is very little, but I we have to cut our cake according to measure. We went wild in past years and are suffering as a result. The suffering endured in the past nine years of austerity has been frightening. The impact it has had on families and human beings has been appalling.

We cannot ever write out of history the number of people who are abroad and the number who are sick. We also have those who are under pressure and cannot pay their mortgage and are being terrorised by the banks. They were not mentioned in the Budget Statement. We have the terror industry around the banks and the repossession agents. We have the peace process in the North to deal with the impact of the Troubles and there are peace processes all over the world. We need someone to intervene to call off the hound dogs. Deputy Clare Daly spoke about blood sports. There is a blood sport and there is not a word about it. People are being terrorised and beaten up in their homes and on bóithríns and roads and being evicted. It is going on, but we have had a budget that does not even mention home repossessions or those in mortgage distress to any great extent.

There was no mention of FEMPI either, with no move to row back on the devastating impact of that on many families and individuals.

I am positive about many aspects of the budget but I have to refer to areas that have been totally neglected. I welcome the modest increase of €5 per week for carers but more needs to be done. Family carers provide an essential service and have no supports whatsoever. Our hospitals are in crisis but they would be in twice the crisis or four times the crisis but for family carers who keep their loved ones at home. It is proven in all expert reports that they recover better at home but this support is not even recognised. They will get a fiver a week but as someone said it will be gone on petrol alone in one trip to the GP and back. The applications process for carer's allowance needs to be speeded up because it is too slow and too unwieldy. It is a cumbersome situation that is taking far too long. I salute the Carers Association in Tipperary and its manager, Councillor Richie Molloy, and all the carers and the work they do. I attended a fund-raising marathon last Sunday. It is held every year and is always successful, and I thank everybody for their support.

On education, nothing was done on class sizes. We know how important this issue is but lip service is paid all the time to how important it is to have a young educated workforce. We need to be educated across a wide spectrum and it is demoralising for teachers to try to teach between 28 or 30 pupils in a class. There is nothing concrete yet about the capital spend on the schools building programmes. Many schools in Tipperary are housed in Dickensian buildings, including a school for girls and a school for boys in Cahir town. The Gaelscoil in Cluain Meala has been waiting for years. Schools have to wait for decades on architects, engineers and preplanning. They have go through this stage, that stage and the other - site procurement and God knows what. It is frustrating. There are too many official linkages and hoops that people have to go through. These are ordinary working people who volunteer on parents' councils and boards of management alongside teachers and school management.

Working class families and the squeezed middle in middle class Ireland were almost forgotten about. When they send children to college, they do not get a grant from SUSI. I do not know why something could not be devised in order that students who do not get grants can continue to receive the children' allowance until the age of 22 or 23. They have to pay their fees and then pay enormous costs for accommodation. Surely those accommodation costs could be subject to a tax rebate or a tax credit. There must be some imaginative way of helping the ordinary working man and woman. I do not know how families with maybe one parent working do it. They could have children in national school, secondary school and third level at the same time. The budget seriously lacked imagination. I welcome the extension of the rent a room threshold. This is a good scheme but ordinary working people who do not get the SUSI or other grants should be allowed to claim tax credits. I appreciate SUSI has been reformed but, my God, there were some delays. There are still delays but it has sorted out most of its issues.

The Government has referred to obesity and a sugar tax. The Minister said it might be introduced next year but there will be more reviews. However, the capital funding for sport is down 30%, which is outrageous. We were told that most of last year's funding went on the development of the national arena in Dublin. To hell or to Connacht for the rest of the country. There is a two-tier Ireland. The Government can deny it but it is blatant. All the rural clubs in Tipperary, including in Clonmel and my own area, must go hump for another year. They must fund-raise and do their own developments. Again, we are talking about volunteers who are busy ordinary working people giving their time and expertise to train teams and provide facilities at clubs and, above all, go through the hoops of filling out detailed applications. Many civil servants could not fill them out but they fill them in after hiring expertise. They then have to lobby politicians and now we are 30% shy before we even start. That is an outrage and it is a mockery to talk about obesity or to talk about Olympics performance. I met a student this morning from Cavan school who contests in a certain discipline. His teacher asked him where he would be next and he replied that it would be the next Olympics. That is the kind of vision, passion and enthusiasm that is in our young people. The enablers are club officers, members and supporters who hold coffee mornings, road races or sales of work and who are constantly fund-raising to subvent good healthy lifestyles, and good heritage. We want to play our national games and have pride, as we did in Tipperary when we took the cup after missing it for a number of years. Every county aspires to that.

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