James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the budget, albeit a week after the budget was passed. I understand that in times gone by it was common for the budget debate to span many weeks. Perhaps the fizz has gone out of the bottle somewhat since the weeks before the budget have become the time for the primary debate rather than the weeks afterwards. There are few surprises on budget day that have not been flagged in advance and focus groups tested. Some items are withdrawn and added before and after the budget. This is the first budget adopted in what is termed a time of new politics. I welcome the new politics and I find it normal and democratic. The old days of winner takes all and an absolutist rule by a majority Government do not reflect a fair exercise of the mandate of 158 Deputies elected to the Chamber. Although the last Government had the biggest majority in the history of the State, few would suggest it was a good Government, as last February's election showed. For decades in the North of Ireland we saw how an inbuilt majority could scupper every piece of legislation from the other side of the House. In 40 years of Stormont, the only piece of Nationalist legislation to be passed was the Wild Birds Protection (Northern Ireland) Act 1931.

Minority governments are commonplace across Europe. Recently, I was privileged to visit the Danish Parliament with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment. The Danish Government serves with only one third of the seats in the Parliament. Our near neighbour, the National Assembly for Wales, also has a minority arrangement. Earlier this year, after our Government had been formed but before the Welsh Government had, it studied the confidence and supply arrangement which we have in place for guidance. I hope it was of some assistance. The Scottish and many other parliaments also have such arrangements. However, some Dáil Members struggle with our new arrangements. Some show withdrawal symptoms from the overly adversarial days of the past. Some seem to seek the Punch and Judy show and a binary arrangement in which one side must lose in order for the other side to win, including some in the media, some Deputies and some Ministers.

I was struck, in particular, by the performance of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, last week when he devoted most of his allocated speaking time for his Department's brief to engage in scathing invective in respect of my party. His origins are in the Fine Gael Party and perhaps he has gone native or reverted to type with the increased zeal of the convert.

In any event, that episode and the new reality remind me of debates in the early days of democracy, with the gradual realisation that peace was preferable to war and pooling sovereignty delivered better results. Early political philosophers such as Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau rejected the idea that the state of nature is a state of war and moved on from that. They also noted that, in the absence of co-operation, life in the wild is not attractive. Life or, as in this case, ministerial careers or Government terms could, in the word's of Locke, be "poor, nasty, brutish, and short". However, we have moved on.

Turning to the substance of the budget, just one and a half of the 12 minutes for which the Minister, Deputy Ross, spoke on the budget were devoted to his brief. The remainder of his contribution was partisan in nature. Perhaps that is because only three pages of the 207-page public expenditure document contain details on transport issues. The Minister had nothing about which to talk. In the three pages on transport, there are two sections on roads projects, although little detail is provided, and one short section on public transport, which principally consists of re-announcing pre-flagged Luas works that are already under way. Considering the importance of climate action to this House and the world in general and in view of the gridlock which sometimes surrounds this city and which is worsening as the economy - thankfully - begins a slow recovery, the paucity of any big picture, or even a small one, in respect of public transport planning in the budget is shocking.

The greater Dublin area strategy for the next 30 years was announced during the election interregnum but there is no hint of it within the budget. My constituency of Kildare North is the home of the commuter belt, with tens of thousands of people travelling daily from towns such as Sallins, Naas, Clane, Kilcock, Celbridge, Maynooth and Leixlip by multiple modes of transport. However, the infrastructure needed to support them, make their lives easier and commutes shorter and increase their quality of life and work options is not being provided. Where in this budget is there any provision for the interconnector rail tunnel, the much-needed metro, a new circle line, the next Luas extensions, the electrification of rail lines, the extension of quality bus corridors or incentives to promote cycling, pedestrianisation, connectivity and wider forms of sustainable transport? There is none. Despite the Minister sneering during last week's speech about the metro being on the way, it is not happening. If the Minister of State read the detail of the budget, he would see that not a single cent can be spent on the metro - not even on an investigation - in all of 2017. That is not to mention multiple road schemes - such as the critical Sallins bypass, M7 widening in my constituency and many related projects - that are not flagged at all.

There are few new measures in the energy and environmental provisions. Some colleagues on the left have highlighted that there is no apparent money to wind down Irish Water. Apart from the never-ending debate on whether we should pay for water, is it not time for us to decide what to do with Irish Water? There needs to be a little imagination in this regard.

Energy in Ireland is lost wholesale as power plants, factories and many other heat sources literally pump power into nearby watercourses instead of usefully capturing it. So much heat is poured down the drain or pumped into the River Liffey, the temperature of which is 7o Celsius higher than it should be for a river of its size. There are more innovative solutions across Europe. For example, district heating captures excess heat and water and pumps them directly into households as a form of heating, comprising one third of the energy mix. These and many other innovative solutions could and should be explored instead of interminably debating costs and charging. Let us decide what we will do about this situation.

Turning to jobs and enterprise, the greatest challenge facing this island now and for the foreseeable future is Brexit. Many claims were made in advance about how the budget would be Brexit-proof and would contain many measures to address the situation. However, there are precious few. Brexit is the greatest challenge we face. In the coming 12 months, which will be the lifetime of this budget, many decisions will be made in British boardrooms and institutions on whether they will relocate or stay put. With a little bit of creativity, we could have had a Brexit package that included a number of measures to target and attract foreign direct investment to our shores, for example, a work visa programme, office space, fast-tracking inquiries of interest, share ownership packages for employees who were relocating, transport infrastructure and the well-rehearsed arguments on accommodation, energy and quality-of-life issues. Our personal taxation rate is comparable with the rest of Europe, if on the high side, but we do not enjoy the services that other countries do. As to capital gains tax for entrepreneurs, it is 10% under the €1 million threshold. This is welcome, but the UK's 10% threshold is £10 million. This makes it more difficult to relocate capital to Ireland.

Brexit offers opportunities but there has been a lack of imagination in that regard. The same can be said in terms of energy and climate action. I hope that these issues and those relating to transport will be addressed because they are critical.

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