Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Stay-at-home parents and families have been discriminated against in this budget. They are not happy about the child care programme that is being rolled out because their needs have not been considered at all. Everyone in this country should be cherished and treated equally, but this section of our community - young families - is not being treated fairly in budget 2017. I am speaking for these people, who are working very hard and trying to survive with little help from anyone. They are what I call low to middle-income earners and they would welcome the opportunity of being able to go out to work to support the family income. However, they are not getting a chance to do so in this budget.

There has been a lot of repetition in the Dáil Chamber, and every Member is entitled to speak and highlight what they consider important, but I do not know if there has been mention of the fact that there has been no increase in the budget for county roads, class 3 roads and general maintenance. Every Member coming into this House knows the serious problem of ponding on our roads. It is happening on national secondary and national primary routes as well. Serious ponding occurs in heavy rain because the local authorities for the past number of years have not been able to carry out the normal drainage programme they used to undertake going back years. This programme was important for the safety of drivers travelling on the roads on dark nights. Each and every one of us knows what happens when we drive into a savage pool of water after heavy rain. We cannot see the road or where we are on it and a wave of water is up on the windscreen. If there are cars coming against us, we do not know if we will avoid them or they us. It is a serious matter.

People who are paying massive tax for their motor cars and vehicles and large amounts of VAT on diesel and petrol before they can go on the roads cannot understand where the money is going or how it is being spent. They feel it should be spent on the roads on which they are travelling, and I agree with them. It is not happening and has not been happening for the past number of years. Local councillors have been on to me today again. Until 2011, the local authority would receive in the third quarter of the year what was known as discretionary funding. The councillors could nominate two or three roads that were not on the roads programme but were no longer traversable since the three-year roads programme was put in place. Sadly, these roads are not being addressed and many of them are in an awful state. I cannot see, with the amount of money that is put forward in the budget for county and local roads, that there will be any change to that this year. This is to be deplored and must be rectified.

I spoke this morning about housing. I will refer again to social housing first. Until recently, there were four stages before a local authority would get approval to build a scheme of houses. That has been changed, but local authority officials are still not happy. It has been reduced to one stage if they want to go down that route. However, they have been advised that the Department will not cover any other expenditure that might be needed in the course of building the houses if the original figure agreed on varies upwards and that they will have to cover the extra cost.

This is not fair. Where will they get this funding if it is required? This is another stumbling block that is preventing local authorities from providing social housing.

The procurement system effectively rules out small local builders being awarded contracts because only large national building firms will meet the financial requirements set down under procurement rules. Companies bidding for contracts must have a certain turnover and given that no building work has been done in rural counties in the past seven or eight years, local builders do not have any turnover. However, they have the ability and know-how to build houses and they are prepared to do so. The big national companies will be awarded the contract but it is the small local companies that will do the work. They have stood the test of time and provided a good service and when something goes wrong, they are there to put it right again. As has happened before in many cases, something will go wrong and the small firms will not be fully paid. It is unfair that some of these companies will be caught again under the new procurement system.

The same procurement system will apply to the rapid build programme the Minister makes much ado about. Small building firms and contractors will build the rapid build houses, even if it is the large national companies that are awarded the contracts. No one knows if the small builders will be paid for the work they do.

I am disappointed and cannot understand the reason second hand houses have not been included in the help-to-buy scheme. The reason given was that the home renovation scheme would be extended to allow present occupiers two more years to improve their houses. This will help people who have a home, rather than those who are looking for a home. Whoever wrote the reply must have had a good few drinks at that stage because it did not give a reason for not allowing second homes to be considered under the help-to-buy scheme.

This morning, I raised with the Taoiseach two blockages that are preventing developers from building private housing schemes. I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Damien English, is listening because the Taoiseach did not listen to me this morning or give me a fair, reasonable or honest answer. He also laughed at me a couple of weeks ago when I raised the issue of flooding in County Kerry. As a Deputy elected by the people of Kerry, I do not respect the Taoiseach because he laughed at people who are experiencing flooding problems in Kerry and elsewhere. I was brought up to respect everyone, including politicians and I respected every Taoiseach until now. However, if this is the respect the Taoiseach has for people in Kerry, I do not have much time for him. It is not fair to laugh at people who ask that something be done when flood waters have risen and come into their homes. The Taoiseach should not laugh at them.

This morning, when I informed the Taoiseach about two blockages that are preventing local developers from starting to build houses, the Taoiseach did not give me much of a hearing. These companies cannot get funding from mainstream Irish banks and where they are able to secure funding from lending institutions outside the country, they are charged interest of 10% or 12.5%. The second blockage is the levies and charges they must pay up front and the taxes and VAT they must pay within two months. Something must be done about this because 37% or 38% of the cost of building a house finishes up in the coffers of the State. Surely a system could be devised to allow builders time to pay taxes and VAT.

While some developers and building contractors have a bad name, 95% of them are honest, hard-working people who want to survive and make a living, just like everyone else. If there is a problem with 5% of developers, there are methods of addressing that through the local authorities and building control regulations. I am sorry the Taoiseach did not listen to my comments on this issue and chose instead to make a joke of it by giving me an answer taken from the housing strategy that had nothing to do with the two issues I raised. If the two problems I outlined are not addressed, housing construction will be at a standstill next year and few if any houses will be built.

The Government is not giving the problems presented by Brexit the recognition they deserve. The issue is causing uncertainty among farmers and others. The dramatic decline in the value of sterling has already resulted in a reduction in income of between 10% and 12% for small companies exporting to London. Brexit will affect everyone, notably the tourism sector. Hoteliers have done great work in the past three or four years turning around the tourism product. If it was not for the tourism sector, towns such as Killarney, Dingle and Kenmare in County Kerry would be very quiet places. The Oireachtas should set up a separate forum, comprised of Ministers and backbench Deputies from all parties, to work together day and night on this issue. The people who elected us are seeking guidance on Brexit and we need to have a policy to deal with it.

On the day I learned about the British decision to leave the European Union, I called on the Government to ask or cajole the UK into having another referendum. While this does not seem likely, I have met people who voted to leave and are crying out for another opportunity to vote because they know they were wrong and have changed their minds. The whole country depends on the Dáil to advise how or whether we will survive Brexit and what strategy or strategies will be put in place to deal with it. This needs to be done urgently and I ask the Government to wake up and tackle the issue immediately.

The budget did not deal with school transport. Successive Governments gave undertakings that when a school closed in a certain area and its pupils were moved to a more central school, funding would be made available to ensure Bus Éireann provided school transport for pupils travelling to the central school. This agreement has not been honoured and many parents are suffering as a result. They must take children on long journeys to school and lose valuable time. Some have to bring younger children with them in the car each morning and evening, regardless of whether they are sick or tired or anything else, to ferry older children back and forth. The rules have been changed and ten children are now required to keep a school run going.

In some glens and valleys, sadly, because of rural decline, they do not have free school transport. One thing the whole of the country appreciated was the free school transport that was brought in by Donogh O'Malley and that made a difference to so many families. However, it has gradually been eroded. There was a Bill in the Dáil on access to schools. People in these areas are as entitled to education as those of any other class or creed so I ask that we ensure that what is happening will be reversed. We have to see after our children, and if we do not, our country will go down the swanee.

We are talking about rural decline. Places in south Kerry have amalgamated. Even Kilgarvan, Sneem and Caherdaniel cannot have a team of their own and have to join up with two or three other teams. That gives an indication of how many youngsters are emigrating from our country to London, Australia and Canada. The worry I have is that, while they received a wonderful education, we are going to lose all their talents. Even though they mean well when they leave and they intend to come back, that is not happening. We are losing our doctors and people of many and various skills. They are our future. I am very worried we will not have the people to fill the positions that need to be filled in the future. Even at this point in time, we must ensure no more of them will go and we must work harder to ensure we have employment for them here in order to keep them in rural areas. Maybe some of the environmentalists would say they should all move into the cities, towns and villages but that is not the way I see it. A light in a glen is a sign of life. If we do not have that light, we will lose our future. I do not think we value rural Ireland as much as we should.

The west is where most calves are produced and that is where our beef industry originates. If there are not enough calves, our beef industry will fall down because it is those people who get up in the middle of the night to calve the cows and mind the calves and put them suckling. It does not matter if it is raining, dry or cold, they have to get out and do that. We must appreciate that but those people have been neglected. For as long as I am here, I will keep highlighting that because rural Ireland cannot be let go. If that happens, we can forget it.

There is a lot of money being spent here in Dublin. I do not begrudge the people of Dublin but it looks to me as if the aim is to get people into this city, underground or overground. They are talking about building another terminal in Dublin and fighting over where they will put it. At the same time, they let Shannon be downgraded. I do not begrudge the people of Dublin but the people in the west and other rural areas are entitled to the very same treatment.

I hope the Ministers take on board what I have said. I look forward to co-operating with them as long as they co-operate with me but the treatment I got this morning from the Taoiseach, and the other day as well, is not acceptable. I do not condone him laughing at the people of Kerry or any other people when the flood is coming in their doors.

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