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

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on the budget. Fianna Fáil brought forward a Private Members' motion in the Chamber last night on pensions inequities and the implementation of the 2012 budget when the then Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, introduced the cut. I know that people are tired of listening to the talk about this issue but I raised it last June after I was elected to Dáil Éireann. I could see the anomaly in what was a very severe cut, and especially in a woman introducing such a cut in a budget that affected mostly women. It was absolutely unbelievable. We had the debate last night, we will vote on it today and I implore the Government to look at the situation. It is very unfair on those persons who are affected. One of the possible solutions would be to bring back the homemaker claim. From 1994 there was an allowance for a homemaker, for women who had to give up work to mind their children and who then went back into the workforce. As a result their pensions have been badly cut. There is an answer to this. If the homemaker scheme could be backdated to prior to 1994, it could be a help and would go a long way to alleviate the difficulties being felt by those affected.

The young farmers' scheme from the national reserve was a fund of €25 million that was introduced in 2015 to support the farming community, in particular young, trained and qualified farmers. Based on that 2015 funding commitment many young farmers rented lands, paying very high rents, and committed to six year leases because a six year lease was required to qualify for the scheme. In 2016, unfortunately, no funds were made available for the scheme and in 2017 €5 million was made available. This leaves those farmers in dire circumstances. I ask the Government to look at the situation again. There is a vision for agriculture for the future to 2025, but I can tell the House that by 2020 many of these young and qualified farmers will be bankrupt if they do not get support from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to help them stay in business. Part of that agriculture plan looks to create 23,000 jobs in to the future. Unless we get support for these people they will not be in business; they will be gone out of business.

I will now turn to regional development. I had a meeting recently with the CEO of IDA Ireland in the north west. In fairness, it is trying to get employment to the regions and to get companies to move to the north west to create jobs. It is, however, having great difficulty in this regard. One of the main difficulties that was explained to me was the road infrastructure from Galway, and particularly from Dublin, to Sligo and that region. This is the N4 section. I am glad to see that the M4 was included in the Budget Statement, along with the M5 and the Macroom bypass. The M4 extension is shovel ready, the lands have been compulsorily purchased and the deals have been agreed with the farmers and those who are to lose their houses. Most of the people have been paid for their land and compensation and the road is fenced. The project is shovel ready. It is a crucial infrastructure development for the north-west region. We need every advantage to try to get companies and foreign direct investment in to that area.

I have raised the issue of decentralisation of Departments on a number of occasions. Decentralisation was announced in the 2003 budget by Fianna Fáil and while it was a good programme, one of its faults was that the three-year timeframe was too ambitious. It just could not be done in three years. People may like to move but because of family commitments, such as children in school or university, they cannot make that decision in a three year-period. I believe we should look at the idea again. Dublin city is bursting at the seams and people cannot afford to buy houses. They can barely afford to pay the rent. Despite the fact they are in good jobs, and this includes people working in Departments, they still find it extremely difficult to survive in the city. We should definitely look at moving Departments out in a very programmed way over a period of ten to 15 years. It could mean a better quality of life for many people and would probably open up more accommodation in the city, which is already stretched to capacity.

We met with the credit union movement this morning. Credit unions have €10 billion in available funds. They do a small number of mortgages but the Central Bank should be encouraged to change the rules to allow credit unions to lend money to people to buy their homes. In Ireland, especially in urban centres such as Dublin, Limerick and Galway, people are paying more in rent than they would for a mortgage to buy a house. This is a sad situation to be in. People are so stretched that they will never have a hope of putting together a 20% deposit. If a person has a good credit rating and has paid his or her rent for the last four or five years without any issues, then he or she should be considered for a mortgage, especially as the money is there. Mortgage lending is the most profitable lending that an institution can do. The credit unions, unfortunately, cannot lend the money. I know from my experience in auctioneering that banks are very selective in whom they lend to. KBC advertise night and day on television but it does not say it is only lending in Dublin, Cork or Galway. It does not say that it will not lend to people in rural areas; it is a fact that it does not.

It is time the banks were brought to heel, of that there is no question.

The tenant purchase scheme has been debated in the Dáil. It is wrong that people who are on social welfare are not allowed to purchase their house, despite the fact they could be in it for 25 or 30 years. This should be looked at and these people should be given an opportunity to purchase their house. These houses are not going to become available. The people are there and when they go, their families will be there. They should be given this opportunity and the money that is collected from that should be used to provide more housing. The local authorities should start building local authority houses. In my home town of Ballymote, County Sligo, in 1947 the Government of the day built a housing scheme of 57 well-constructed houses, which are still standing today. All that was ever done to them was that they were painted and looked after, and Storm Ophelia earlier this week did not put a dent in any of them. We should be building more of those houses for people.

I recognise it is an improvement that €55 million will be made available to the National Treatment Purchase Fund this year. This scheme was introduced in 2008 by a Fianna Fáil Government. We had waiting lists at the time but the scheme definitely made a major dent into those lists and, if funding is made available next year, I have no doubt we will see a further reduction. That we have 640,000 people on waiting lists is frightening. We should recognise the fact that when people get into the medical system, they are very well looked after in all the hospitals. However, getting into the system is the problem.

The cancer strategy was very divisive, particularly in the north west, where people availing of cancer services had to go to Galway, in particular for radiotherapy. Chemotherapy is available in the hospital in Sligo but the diagnostics and radiotherapy are in Galway. I believe the technology currently available means this radiotherapy could be delivered in the north west, at a hospital like Sligo hospital, even though it would be administered from Galway. This would save many thousands of people having to travel on buses to Galway or having to live in Galway for the period of their treatment, which might only be ten minutes of treatment per day for six weeks. It would be helpful and is something that should be investigated. I call on the Government to consider the possibility.

The child and adolescent mental health service, CAMHS, is another issue in the north west, where there are serious difficulties. There is a respite home in Sligo which catered for eight people and which was specifically built eight years ago at a cost of €1.5 million to provide respite to parents by giving them a weekend or a few days off. That service has recently closed and the building is being used for decongregation. The people who were availing of the service now have to travel from Sligo to Monaghan, which is nearly a 350 km round trip with somebody who is probably in a wheelchair. It is disgraceful. A commitment was given by the Department that a new respite centre would be opened by the middle of this month but, as far as I am aware, a building has not even been identified where this service could be provided.

Another issue that will arise next year is in regard to school transport. While we had difficulties this year, the situation will be even more difficult next year. Ahead of next year's programme, which will apply from early March, the Government needs to make provision to ensure the service can be run efficiently so people are not discommoded. We were lucky that things worked out to some extent this year but I can foresee a lot of difficulties next year.

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