Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on the budget. There are parts of the budget I welcome, including the €5 increase in the pension, the €5 increase in working-age payments and the new €15 million national treatment purchase fund. While the €15 million will help, it is insufficient to make inroads into the waiting lists. There are many people waiting for procedures to be carried out. The last time the fund was in place, Fianna Fáil put €50 million into it and we definitely caught up. If we can continue to increase the fund, we will eventually solve the problem. The targeted USC cuts of 0.5% across the rates are welcome as is the increase and reactivation of the CLÁR and RAPID programmes. I also welcome the expansion of the rural social schemes with 500 new places. I am very much aware of people in rural Ireland who may live alone and who are in their late 30s. For the sake of their health, they want to get on a community employment or rural social scheme even though it is only €20 per week. It gets them out of the house meeting people and is good for them. I know of two cases where people work four weeks in the month to get paid for two because they want to get out working. It is good for them. The €55 million increase in rent supplement is welcome because it is very badly needed at the moment.

There are areas in which more could have been done, however. I am not sure the first-time-buyers grant is well thought out. Before I came into the Dáil, I was very involved in the property business and I cannot see how this is going to work. In our part of the country, which is the north west, people are on the minimum wage. If they are over that, they are very lucky and probably working in Government jobs. In our part of the world a four-bedroom semi-detached house costs approximately €150,000. People there will not have been paying that much tax and I do not think they will see any benefit from the scheme. I agree with Deputy Fleming that the scheme should be reconsidered in the Finance Bill to see if it can be tweaked. I understand that it is needed to get builders to build houses because it is not profitable at the moment to build these types of houses, but we should look at it again. It will not work in its current form.

The lack of investment in local authorities was mentioned by the last Fine Gael speaker. There is a serious issue with regional and, in particular, local roads. We should look at more funding for local improvement schemes because the people involved are as important as those people who live on the motorways. They should be looked after and given whatever help we can provide because the roads network has become terrible over the last number of years, particularly with the weather we have seen.

The inheritance tax threshold for children has been raised to €310,00 while the category B and C thresholds have been raised by 8%. I have heard Sinn Féin and other Independent Deputies criticising this measure. Are they telling me that a father or mother in Dublin who wants to hand over his or her house to a son or daughter should be penalised? The average price of a house in most parts of Dublin is nearly €400,000. That places a liability on a son or daughter who is given a house by a parent of €40,000 to €50,000. It is another mortgage again notwithstanding the fact that the parents earned the money and paid tax on it. They are being taxed again because they want to give it to a family member. The thresholds should be increasing, not falling. Certainly, the category B threshold should be increased. While it has been increased by 8%, it involves brother to brother and should be increased substantially.

The home carer's tax credit has been expanded by €100. While this is a step in the right direction, the efforts of stay-at-home parents must be fully recognised with further increases. They play a major part in the care of children.

The provision of €55 million for rent supplement and HAP is welcome because there is no doubt that rents are getting expensive. While they are very expensive in Dublin and the larger urban areas, my local area in the north west has seen rent increases of 40% over the last two years, unbelievable as that seems. There is now a shortage, which we never had in our area of the north west before.

The confidence and supply arrangement outlines a commitment to a full review of the plan in mid-2017. This was a critical part of the overall agreement and it is vital that the review provides an opportunity to make crucial decisions on pivotal infrastructure projects designed to address housing, transport, broadband, flooding and the broader threat of climate change. School transport must also be looked at. It is going to be reviewed in 2017 and I look forward to that.

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