Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like others, I am glad to have an opportunity to speak ahead of the Finance Bill which will give statutory effect to the budget of last week. I welcome the positive developments that have taken place over the past five or six years and to recognise the sacrifices that have been made by the Irish people and by many in this House, in particular in regard to the crucial decisions that had to be made to stabilise the country at a time of great distress.

I listened to the various issues that have come to the fore in recent times. Critics will always ask, "What have you been doing for the past five years?" It never ceases to amaze me why some commentators do not seem to recognise that we were broke five years ago - no money, nothing, empty coffers, increasing demands, nowhere to go, nowhere to run. A great task had to be undertaken by the then Government, with the support of some people in this House, which is acknowledged and accepted. However, others saw the opportunity to undermine, to second-guess and to put forward unrealistic proposals which very often are about as good as they paper they are written on.

We have now reached a situation where there is at least a basis on which to build our future. For those who say it is not coming quick enough, of course, nothing ever comes quick enough - a watched kettle is the old familiar story. It could not come any quicker for the simple reason that it takes time to recover and recovery is an ongoing process. We also need to be careful to ensure we do not let it slip again. This is a warning to us all. We were, we do not ever want to be again where we were five or so years ago. The sacrifices and efforts that were made by the people over the past years should not have to be made again to achieve that same purpose of surviving. I hope that lesson has been well and truly learned at this stage and we can now go forward in the knowledge that our destiny is in our own hands. We can plan ahead for the future in a realistic way and make the necessary decisions, which we are doing, and as time goes by the country will reap the benefits.

There are still many challenges, of course, including in regard to infrastructure. I agree with the speakers who say that vital elements of infrastructure are still required, in particular in regard to roads and transport, which are hugely important. The previous speaker spoke about the N4. I remember travelling during the summer on the road from Castlebaldwin towards Sligo, where there are 31 crosses on the roadside marking accidents where people lost their lives, no doubt as a result of roads that are incapable of taking the volume of traffic thrust upon them by today's requirements. I particularly welcome the spending on roads, given the vital role they will play in the future economic development of the country.

There are also infrastructural challenges in regard to hospitals. Thankfully, the Government was in a position to be able to proceed with the new children's hospital, the new maternity hospital and a number of other major hospital developments throughout the country. The list is endless and more is always required. It is important that the Government at all times continues to strategically select the projects that require the most immediate attention and does its best to meet those demands. I believe it is doing that, and doing it well.

I spoke on the night of the budget about the application of stamp duty to the farming community, and I know something is being done to address this at present. I mentioned that the proposal could have the direct opposite effect to what was intended. In the meantime, I believe considerable discussions have taken place which, hopefully, will deal with this issue.

The previous speaker mentioned the necessity to spread the fruits of the economy evenly throughout the country, which is correct. We cannot continue to develop from east to west. We have to put in place the infrastructure that is necessary to facilitate the development that has to take place throughout the other regions.

Whether it be in Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway, Mayo, Sligo or wherever, we have to proceed vigorously to encourage investment. I hope the recent and continued hiccups in respect of the investment in County Galway can be resolved fairly quickly. We cannot afford to say to investors that we do not really need them here and that they should go somewhere else. We have to make up our minds. We either want investment or we do not. We should recognise that it is a very competitive space. There are others who encourage investment as well and we are up against them. It is up to us to put our best foot forward.

In respect of health, there are many challenges that will remain for some considerable time. We are among the higher echelons of funding for health services among the OECD countries. We need to step back and look at how we are spending our money. Are we getting good value? Money thrown at a situation, as has been shown in the past, does not necessarily produce the results. There is an urgent necessity to evaluate what exactly is happening, apart from Sláintecare altogether. For example, we need to examine the long waiting lists. Why do we have waiting lists? We can attribute some of it to the bad economic time we have come through. However, we have traditionally had a problem with waiting lists, to the extent that we have to ask ourselves what are the reasons. There has to be some reason to which it can be attributed. Is it because of lack of theatre space or theatre staff? Is it because of a lack of consultants or general practitioners?

I had an interesting exchange with officials from the HSE at the health committee yesterday. I asked them the same question and nobody has answered it. The fact remains that there are facilities in the public sector that are not utilised at all. I do not know why. The answer needs to be found and we should not have to wait forever for it. A consultant recently remarked that in the private sector, he can do a full day's work from morning until late evening, without interruption and with all facilities available. In the public sector, the same consultant might get two hours and then there will be a shortage of some facility. Something is missing, a link in the chain is not there. Why? Unless we come to grips with that situation, we can spend all the money we like on our health services but it will not make a jot of difference. What is the cause of the overcrowding in accident and emergency departments? Is it because more people go there instead of to their general practitioner? Is it because there are insufficient numbers of general practitioners? What is happening there?

Our population is increasing. There is great emphasis being placed on the cohort of older people in the country but that is not accurate. It is being put out as an excuse for almost everything. In fact, the cohort of younger people is greater here than in most other European countries at present. Many of those who left the country in the past, and who did not come back, were young people. Many of those who left more recently during the recession did so for a shorter time, and came back. They are here now. They are young people in productive employment who are contributing to this economy. It is not true or accurate to say the problem is that we have a lot of older people. The sooner the system wakes up to that, the better.

The Sláintecare report, to which I was honoured to contribute, will address the issues. However, unless it also addresses the structural issues, nothing is going to happen. I emphasise what I said on many occasions during those discussions, namely, that I believe the HSE is the incorrect structure to deliver services throughout the country. The Fianna Fáil Deputies will not agree with me because their party abolished the old health boards. I do not know whether they think that was a good idea now. I do not think it was, although the health boards needed to be reformed. The correct structure is to have about four regional bodies in which there would be local democracy and accountability and the input of professionals, be they general practitioners, consultants, hospitals or whatever. They should be involved in decision making at local level, as well as in the responsibility that goes with it. We would then be able to send representatives from those bodies to a national structure which could be similar to the HSE. At present, I cannot see how it is ever going to work. From the beginning, the HSE was not the correct structure to run the services throughout the country. The talents and dedication of those within the health service are better tapped when responsibility is given to them at local level. Some people would say there should be no politicians on any such body or board but that is not correct. Politicians are elected by the public to represent them and, like everybody else, they have to be at the coalface playing a responsible role and dealing with the situations that arise.

The other thing that, sadly and tragically, has not gone away is the housing situation. Other speakers have referred to it. Going back as far as the Administration that preceded the last Government, I saw what was happening, as did many others who are still Members of the House, including the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan. It was quite obvious to some of us that we were heading into a major catastrophe, because we were not building on an ongoing basis. We were not replenishing our housing stock and were not creating affordable houses for those who were in an income bracket in which they could not afford to risk borrowing above their heads. Unfortunately, we have not addressed that yet. I compliment the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government on the work that is being done and that is still to unfold. However, it is like the mills of God that move exceeding slow. Unless we can accelerate the programme in a really meaningful way in the shortest possible time, this sadly is going to get much worse. Of course we should not have people sleeping on the streets and under bridges. However, that is not the major issue. It is the result of the other issues of crowding and pressure in the market space. It takes three incomes now to fund a mortgage on an ordinary three-bedroom, semi-detached house. We can work it out any way we like. A mortgage used to be two and a half times the income under the old system. It is now three times the income but, either way, two people have to work full time in the household to just barely make ends meet. After that, if anything goes wrong or if somebody falls ill, there is a problem. There is a lot of work to be done yet. It requires emergency treatment now.

There are those here who suggest from time to time that nobody thought about it but themselves. Some of us were talking about this many years ago, long before it happened and became obvious. It was clear to us that things were not happening as they should at local level. In my own county in the 1980s, it was deemed that there was a requirement of about 1,000 houses per annum. There were two ways to do that. We could have direct build local authority houses and local authority loans, and we could also develop private sites, which we did. We made 800 to 900 houses available to people within particular income brackets on an annual basis, even through the midst of economic difficulties. There was not a great deal of money available in the country then. It worked very well. We had the housing finance industry loans at the time. They were criticised afterwards by other lending agencies, of course, wrongly so. They made loans available to people who would not get a loan anywhere else at that time. They gave people pride in what they were doing, in their own home and in their work and the commitment they were making to the economy. People were delighted to take that responsibility.

We need to do much more in the context of an accelerated programme to deal with the housing issue. Building has commenced and it is accelerating, which is welcome, but time is of the essence. Those who have been squeezed and who have been waiting for such a long time are at breaking point.

I would like to mention the issue that has engaged many in the past few weeks in respect of banking, that of overcharging, switching, pressure and so on with which some of us have been dealing behind the scenes for a long time. We have been face to face with the bankers and their representatives and sometimes they were not very nice. We witnessed at first hand the attitude in lending institutions and what they thought of their customers and public representatives. We had to go into court time and again to plead on behalf of constituents. Sometimes we were welcome in the banks, but we were not welcomed at all times These issues have been arising not only in recent times but for the past eight years at least. Many were squeezed during that period and forced out of their houses. They suffered greatly and tragically throughout and I hope we have learned lessons.

I am delighted that the Minister for Finance is inviting the chief executive officers of the lending institutions to visit him next week. I hope he will speak to them in the words that need to be spoken. A few years ago one bank official said to me and a customer I was representing, "I am a businessman." I thought of other descriptions at the same time and told him so. We represent the people and they are not always wrong. When they cry out for help, we need to recognise what they are saying and tell them that we are here to help. I also hope the Minister will extend his invitation to the venture capitalists who have taken over some distressed loans. Some of them have been affable and willing to entertain customers, while others have not. The only contribution they have made is causing greater distress and they appear intent on doing nothing less. I hope the Minister will encourage them to recognise the difference between those who have struggled and paid in the past few years and those who did not pay at all because it could come to pass that those who did not pay and walked away will be thanked as well as those who struggled to make payments to the best of their ability. I hope this will be included in his portfolio on the day.

There are challenging times ahead. Nothing was ever going to be easy, as stated in the advertisement. The challenging times arise from Brexit, retrenchment in the United States and the discouragement of the international community in terms of foreign direct investment. We have our own begrudgers in Europe. Some speak out on a regular basis, for example, about the Apple tax. It is now suggested Ireland should collect taxes on profits earned in other jurisdictions, which is completely at variance with the regulations. It also represents an interference with the internal taxation regime in a particular county. This is being done to target a country that has benefited significantly from foreign direct investment, but it is not one-way traffic. Many Irish investors have invested freely abroad on a regular basis. Mr. Martin Naughton was correctly honoured in recent days by Dublin City University for his work in this area. CRH and various others have done the same all over the world. If there is retrenchment globally, everybody will be hurt, but there are those who think the more powerful will succeed. They might for a while, but ultimately they will not.

I would love to air the rest of my grievances, but it would take much longer than the time I have available. I thank the Acting Chairman

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