Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If there are, I will not be pulling them anyway.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. It is the first budget of its kind and is not our desired outcome, but let no one think any different: the alternative was another general election, which I do not think any of our citizens wanted. While others shirked their responsibility to influence policy and their responsibility to the people who placed their confidence and faith in them in the last general election, we did not and we do not apologise for using the 500,000-plus votes we received to change the direction in which this country is going. In the budget before this one there was a 50:50 split of tax cuts to services, whereas in this budget, thanks to our influence, there is a 3:1 split of improvements in services to tax cuts, and the tax cuts favour those on middle to low incomes.

I was amazed and shocked to look at the news on Monday night and see the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, finally wake up as he led his Independent Alliance colleagues into Government Buildings, saying he wanted to ensure the budget had the stamp of the Independent Alliance on it. Less than 24 hours before the budget was announced, the Minister wanted to put the Independent Alliance stamp on the budget. However, I am not surprised that he did not want to change Fine Gael ideology because, after all, he is only coming home to the right-wing party he left a number of years ago.

If one considers the supply and confidence document, many of the positives that emanated from this budget were prescribed in that document earlier in the year, the increases to social welfare payments being one example. I am disappointed they will not commence in January but I would rather see them commence in March than not see them commence at all so our carers, our disability workers and people on unemployment assistance who have seen no benefit or increase for a number of years can share in that benefit.

We will have extra gardaí, but only during the last general election campaign the Tánaiste and Miinister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, said this would not be possible. We will have an extra €15 million in the National Treatment Purchase Fund, which will help to alleviate the historically high waiting lists that climbed so high under the previous Administration. An area I am particularly glad to see receive attention is that of child care. A 35% increase in spending on child care is to be most welcomed. As party spokesperson on child care during the previous Dáil, I continuously and relentlessly highlighted the need for increased investment in this area, so I welcome the increase.

Deputy Howlin said earlier today that he never saw the introduction of a budget without knowing the dates of certain measures contained in it. I remind Deputy Howlin that the previous leader of his party introduced a cut to the lone parent allowance, saying it would not take effect until we had a Scandinavian child care model. We do not have a Scandinavian child care model yet, but I certainly welcome the measures the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, has moved towards in this budget. While no one can question the Minister's sincerity, I have concerns about the gaps in the provisions.

With a household income of €48,000, the subsidy is €8,000, but if the income is €1,000 more, the subsidy drops to €900, which is not fair and I hope the Minister will reconsider it.

The capacity in the sector is another big issue the Minister needs to look at. We should never take away the autonomy of parents. I listened to the Minister, a woman for whom I have great respect, and she was sort of saying that children should not be minded by their grandparents. It is not her decision; the parents decide if their child should be minded by the grandparents.

The biggest challenge and the greatest threat facing our economy at the moment is Brexit. There is huge disappointment among businesses that depend on exports at the Government's lack of response in the budget. Each week €1.2 billion worth of goods and services are exported between Ireland and the UK. As a result of currency fluctuations, businesses are losing between 20% and 25% right now. The prepared consumer goods sector contributes very significantly to job creation in my constituency and accounts for 20% of Irish exports to the UK. It operates on a net margin of 4% to 5% and it is losing between 20% and 25%. That is a loss of 20% now and is putting real jobs at risk now.

While I acknowledge that it is a moveable feast and we are facing two years of negotiations until we know the actual outcome, we should be putting in place now measures to support businesses through these two years of uncertainty. We should have the foot on the ball long enough to see who can survive this. We need to give business the opportunity to work through this until we know what the outcome is. Great work has been done by many captains of industry building up good industries and creating good employment. They find themselves, through no fault of their own, in a very volatile situation. They need support now. The Minister, Deputy Noonan's, promise of a rainy day fund in 2018 is simply not good enough. We need support and these businesses need support now. Nobody has even consulted them to ask what support they need.

The strong pound in recent years has highlighted one critical weakness - how uncompetitive we have become. We have fallen from being the seventh or ninth most competitive country in 2011 to the 17th most competitive country in 2016. We need to examine our high energy costs, our high commercial rates, our high waste charges and our high cost of credit. These things could be done now to help businesses. What did they get in yesterday's budget? An extra €3 million was given to IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, which is an insult to people who are creating jobs. I know the devastation caused by job losses in an area. We experienced it recently in Cameron in Longford and Imperial Tobacco in Mullingar. We need some of that €3 million that is going to IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to bring replacement jobs to our area. Businesses need greater supports to maintain the jobs in our areas.

I turn to my area of responsibility, namely, transport, tourism and sport. It is quite obvious that the Minister, Deputy Ross, the mute Minister in public, is just as mute when he sits at the Cabinet table. Sports funding has been reduced. We have been waiting for more than 12 months for the new sports capital programme. We are told it is coming but the funding is down. Tourism funding is down even though we are facing even greater challenges in the tourism industry because of Brexit and even though we need to ramp up our marketing funding in new markets such as the Middle East and the Far East.

The Minister clapped himself on the back earlier because he had secured a minuscule increase in road funding even though he knows that our national, regional and local roads are crumbling at the seams. As a Deputy who represents a rural constituency, the Minister of State, Deputy Corcoran Kennedy, also knows this. The only capital projects mentioned are the ones that have already commenced, which he wants to finish off. It is simply not good enough.

The Minister talked about reviewing airport capacity in 2018. Does he not know that Dublin Airport is already bursting at the seams for the want of the development of a second runway? What is he doing in that regard? He talked about his Department competing with housing for scarce resources. Does he not realise that his Department plays a pivotal role in helping to solve our housing crisis? We need greater improvement in our public transport infrastructure and that will help with our housing crisis. At a time when funding from the EU is at an historical low, the Minister, Deputy Ross, should be engaging with the EU to look at innovative methods of funding new projects to try to bring about greater capacity in our public transport infrastructure and get Dublin out of its current gridlock.

See this speech in context