Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. The Finance Bill every year gives Deputies an opportunity to reflect on various issues. I will raise three or four.

One of the initiatives in the budget and in the Bill which I welcome is the incoming averaging for farmers. It is clear that the Government acknowledges that there has been a huge crisis in agriculture during 2015 and 2016.

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It was the perfect storm in 2016 in many ways. Nearly every sector, including beef, tillage, sheep and dairy, has been under tremendous pressure. All of that will have a knock-on effect on people working in agriculture or related services trying to collect money. There is a huge issue with income and cashflow in the entire farming fraternity. While there have been some initiatives, including lower-cost finance for agriculture, we need a fundamental review of the product prices at the farm gate. While I welcome the initiative, which signals an acknowledgement of the crisis by the Government, more needs to be done. We have had the beef forum and other talking shops that have made no real progress and a lot of work needs to be done on it.

Nearly all commentators have talked about homelessness, the housing crisis and whether the bar is too low or too high for the Government's buyer initiative and when the contracts have to be signed. However, there is a fundamental issue with housing. There is a major housing issue in Dublin, Cork and some of the other cities. At the other side of it we have rural depopulation. Many people have spoken here over the decades about the movement of population from the west coast to the east coast and the various initiatives that have been put in place.

There is a draconian system of planning affecting in particular, once-off houses in rural communities. Owing to the advent of Irish Water, an extraordinary cost for connecting to public water supply or public sewers is heaped on young couples buying houses. Some of the regulations introduced in recent years are making it nearly impossible for people to build their own houses and encouraging them to live in these communities where there are the schools and sporting facilities that have been there. Huge numbers of people are living on the east coast and there are huge issues with getting more accommodation. It is not just about getting more houses built in urban areas; there is an issue in rural areas.

When it comes to planning regulations, whether they come from the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government or the local authorities, it is almost as if someone decided that no one needed to live west of a line drawn from north to south through Mallow. If that is the policy of the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government or anyone else, they should come out clearly and say so. We could then work from that premise and try to reverse the policy because there is a major issue in that regard.

Many people talk about the costs associated with running small businesses that employ three, four or five people and on up from that. Business owners, whose business ran into difficulty and ceased operating, have difficulty getting social welfare. We need to look at the S-class stamp versus the A-class stamp.

There is another issue with banks that sold products to self-employed people. For example a plumber or builder, who bought a van for his business, may have taken out a payment-protection policy along with the loan. When he lost his business it turned out the payment-protection policy was not worth the paper it was written on; it was mis-sold by the banks.

We are dealing with a number of cases before the Financial Ombudsman Service to try to get money back for people who paid their payment-protection policy either to return the entire premium those people paid for that loan that they took out or they paid the payment-protection policy. They are refusing point blank to move it forward. We have had it with the various Departments with the banks in the first instance and then on to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which has taken a ruling. The insurers have initially accepted the claim and then on some technicality are refusing to pay out. There is a major residual issue there from previous years and we are working with them. It is time for the banks that mis-sold these products to pony up and either gave back the money they paid or pay up on the policy.

Some businesses have had issues with the Revenue Commissioners regarding moneys owed. In some instances we have had a very good experience with the Revenue Commissioners in resolving issues or agreeing gradual payment over the long term to address various tax bills that accrued over time. In other instances they have been very fast to send that bill to the sheriff, which frightens the living daylights out of the people involved. We need to look at how the Revenue Commissioners deal with people in that regard.

The Bill provides for tax incentives to allow people to buy a house for the first time. I wonder if this will drive the prices higher. There is a raft of reasons for us not having enough houses. First, we stopped building for five or six years. Then the population started growing and we suddenly realised we had a crisis. The issue needs far greater thought. We are spreading around the cities while the commuter belts are growing with all the infrastructure that is needed. There is no joined-up thinking. It is happening in London and Dublin where the population is being pulled in, sucking the life out of other towns. In time to come, people will look at the policies pursued leading to vast lands where nobody is living and will conclude that the policies were wrong.

We need to be careful with any provisions in the Finance Bill encouraging entrepreneurs and small businesspeople to employ people. There is a huge crisis in farming. It is a generational issue with the farming community. Ten or 15 years ago we were looking at the destocking of the hills and so forth and farmers were saying they would be the last generation to farm there. Many people are looking at that. There is a huge crisis in the farming, which is our most important indigenous industry. Our planning regulations are off the wall in terms of how they are being policed.

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