Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the context of a Finance Bill debate and given the role played by our late colleague, former Deputy Brian Lenihan, over several years in such debates, I send our sympathies tonight to the Lenihan family on the death of Mrs. Ann Lenihan, a lady of great courage and determination in the face of huge adversity over recent years.

As Deputy Michael McGrath said, the spirit of this budget was not set by the programme for Government but the confidence and supply agreement where the Minister agreed that any budget package carried out for the next three years would have a two-to-one split in favour of investment in services and social protection versus taxation cuts. That this budget went to three to one is a testament to the strength of that confidence and supply agreement, as well as the strength of some of the provisions and determinations contained in it. We will continue to support budgets which reflect that trend, as well as reflecting the need to continue to invest in services and people who need more resources.

The Finance Bill is modest. Deputy Michael McGrath has expressed his concerns about the home buyer’s initiative and there are many areas in which this can be improved. Will the Minister engage with people over the coming weeks before Committee Stage to ensure the scheme will be as advantageous as possible to the first-time buyers who he seems to want to assist?

I welcome sections 5 and 27 with provision for a seafarer’s allowance and the decommissioning provisions for the fishing community. I caution, however, that there seems to be a deadline of 2022 with the seafarer’s allowance. Why is that in place? Will the Minister engage with the fishing community over the coming weeks to ensure this scheme is as effective an allowance as possible to a community which is under enormous pressure at the moment? It must be accompanied with capital investment in our ports and facilities for fishing communities, particularly in the context of Brexit and the opportunities that may emerge for the fishing industry with the extension of quotas and new markets across the world.

Section 17, amending the income averaging regime for farmers, is to be particularly welcomed. Farming is in crisis. The danger is that as it cries wolf so often, when a real crisis comes, as has now, it can be ignored. The collapse of sterling is impacting on farm gate prices, while the pressures on prices for beef and tillage are also having major impacts. The summer’s weather conditions have meant crop yields are not what they normally would be. I reiterate the call for greater support for our farmers, particularly legislative support in competition. Sections 17 and 28 are of no good if farmers have no place to sell their goods or face an uneven playing pitch. As long as we let large retailers and beef operators continue with the practices in which they are currently engaging, these sections will come to nought.

Section 14 introduces several welcome changes to the living city initiative programme announced last year. The programme has not worked, a point acknowledged by many people including the Minister’s local newspaper, the Limerick Leader. These changes will assist the programme. However, without an opening for finance vehicles to access the programme, it will not work. Why is the Minister ignoring the potential role of credit unions in housing provision? The living city initiative is all about the reinjection of communities into our cities and towns. It is about the reinjection of families into the unused premises over offices and shops. Nothing says more about community than our credit union movement. It has €8.5 billion worth of members’ funds available for social housing projects. It is beyond me why the Government ignores the potential role credit unions can play in dealing with our housing challenge.

Given that the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Heather Humphreys, has a town and village renewal scheme, is it not time to link it with the living city initiative? The town and village renewal scheme is about putting minimal infrastructure into towns selected by county councils. Partnering it with a similar scheme, such as the living city initiative, would encourage people to use the infrastructure provided. It is time to have a conversation about the use of state aid rules which are handcuffing us, preventing us from giving the kind of investment we need for our regional and city communities which have not seen improvements. The state aid rules around airport provision, in particular regional airports, are hampering investment in Ireland West Airport Knock and other airports which need investment to the rate of 90% to fulfil their economic role. In the context of our recovery and being at the front line of Brexit, it is important a challenge is made about state aid rules and off-Government balance sheet investments.

As Deputy Michael McGrath said, the change to the capital acquisitions tax is not, as portrayed by some commentators, for rich people in certain parts of Dublin. My office has been hit by cases of people affected by sibling transfers. Older siblings can be left a large tax bill at a late stage in life which forces them to sell a family home to pay the settlement. Not enough was done to deal with sibling tax until this change. It is not the wealthy who will gain from it but ordinary people who get an inheritance late in life because of an unmarried sibling. I had one case of a gentleman who lives in London in social housing who cannot move home to a house left to him because of a tax bill associated with it. These are the kind of people affected by lowering the threshold, not just the wealthy in certain parts of Dublin city.

Next year’s budgetary process has to be considerably different. The role of the independent budget oversight office will be crucial in this respect. The one reason for the need for an independent budgetary oversight office is the lack of an impact assessment for the help-to-buy scheme. The fact the Minister made some desktop analysis around the scheme and tried to fly it off with Central Bank endorsement is absolutely wrong. This House needs an independent budget office to assist Members prepare for the budget and ensure we have the backup and independent guidance to stop something like what happened with this scheme from happening again.

Next year’s budget will have to be different too in the context of Brexit. This budget could have been written before the Brexit referendum due to the lack of initiatives and focus on the issue. Brexit is hampering and hitting our communities. Our mushroom, beef and other food industries, as well as our retail industry, face a very difficult number of weeks ahead at what should be a prime time of the year for them. Yet, as Deputy Michael McGrath said, there is little in this budget for them, a budget which was supposed to be Brexit-proofed but seems to be Brexit-irrelevant.

The €3 million which IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland have received to assist in accessing Brexit opportunities is a mere drop in the water. It will only pay for salaries, never mind the programmes the Government is trying to launch. Today, the Minister made announcements about attracting various bodies to Ireland. They will not come unless we have office and residential accommodation. There is very little in this Finance Bill which will help supply in these two areas. We need a serious Brexit budget the next time around because it will be real by then. Brexit will be impacting on our ability to get the plans we want for this country’s growth. This budget has failed the Brexit test and I get no sense from the Government that it understands that.

The budgetary process was new, difficult and challenging for us. It was the first time an Opposition party signed a confidence and supply agreement. It seems it is catching on if one looks at recent developments in Spain. Fianna Fáil could have walked away and ran to the hills, turning its back on the responsibility it was given at the end of February. We decided not to do that. Instead, we decided to influence the process through confidence and supply. As I said on the day of the Budget Statement, we have not achieved everything. The most important point, however, is that we steered the Government along a path it would not have gone without our input in the confidence and supply agreement. That is the path of fairness, as well as investment in services and people.

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