Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the budget that was announced last week. As Fianna Fáil spokesperson on communications, climate action and the environment, I intend to confine my remarks to my portfolio. Many other areas have been well and truly covered by my colleagues.

I draw the Minister of State's attention to a statement made by the Taoiseach in appointing his Cabinet. He said:

I am determined that the Government should show new ambition when it comes to tackling climate change by setting out a roadmap to a low-carbon economy. Climate change will be the first item to be discussed at our first full day strategic Cabinet meeting.

They were fine words, but, unfortunately, whatever the outcome of the discussions that took place at that meeting, they had no influence on his first budget as Taoiseach. It does not take a rocket scientist to peruse the budgetary proposals from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment for the next year. Absolutely no ambition has been shown to address the issue of climate change. If we were talking about climate change in the abstract, that might be okay, but a previous Government signed up to binding targets, which must be met by 2020. We have committed to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in the usage of renewables. The Environmental Protection Agency's recent report makes it clear that we are on target to miss these targets significantly. The projections are wide and varied regarding the fines that will be levied on the State in 2020, but they could be between €500 million and €1 billion. It is, therefore, not good enough for the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment to abdicate his responsibility and ask from where the money will come to meet the targets because the next question surely is from where will the money come to pay the fines that will be levied in 2020. If the Government somehow believes a relatively benign approach will be taken at European level, that does not gel with the contacts I have had with colleagues in other member states and within the Brussels architecture. The Government has engaged in window dressing in suggesting it has discussed this issue, but it seems to have filed the issue of climate action on some shelf.

One of the significant drivers has to be encouraging people to use electric vehicles and the only way that can be done is through appropriate incentivisation. I have examined the targets set in Norway and what has been achieved there. The uptake of electric vehicles has been enormous in comparison to Ireland. Free tolling and free parking are provided for, while bus lanes can be used by drivers of electric vehicles. In an effort to touch base, the Minister has introduced in next year's budget the notion of a benefit-in-kind rate of zero, with a moratorium of one year and a promise to review the position thereafter in the purchase of such vehicles. The Minister of State will understand the way companies make decisions. Much has been made of our 12.5% corporation tax rate. A reduction of 0.5% or 1% would not matter a damn to the companies concerned. The reason the rate cannot be changed is that it would remove certainty. There is certainty in Ireland about our corporation tax rate. If a measure was to be introduced in the budget whereby the staff of companies and fleet owners provided with electric vehicles would not be charged benefit-in-kind for only one year, there would be no certainty.

As sure as night follows day, the uptake will be very limited. I have spoken to people within the industry who own significant fleets and could make a major dent in increasing the amount of electric vehicles in the country. They have asked why the Government would impose that on employees and then require them to pay a significant BIK the following year. Had it been done for five years with a review thereafter, given the lifecycle of a car of four five years, at least that would give certainty.

That measure was much heralded and trumpeted by a Minister who has come to be recognised now as almost a court jester. Whenever there is an event not related to his Department but in some way vaguely relevant, he is there. He is on the radio and television. Yesterday he was there to welcome the electricity repair crews coming from Northern Ireland. He has a host of engagements in his constituency. He is like the court jester who is asked to open a pub and by the end of his presentation he is talking in the collective. It is "we"; the court jester owns the pub.

We see the same from the Minister, Deputy Naughten, on all these issues. If somebody else is doing something, he thinks he is involved in it by association and it has happened as a result of his efforts and those of the Government. We saw it again this morning. Google has introduced mapping technology to allow emergency services to pinpoint the location of a caller to the 999 or 112 service. The Minister was asked to launch it. He has taken on a much greater role. It is "we", "us" and "the Government"; it is amazing. It would not matter if it was not so serious, but it is acting as a distraction from addressing the real issues. In something like this the Minister could make a real name for himself and be able to use the collective in saying, "We, as a Government, have done something", rather than claiming responsibility as he does.

Turning to the issue of broadband, the budget allocated €15 million, which will just about pay the consultants carrying out the procurement process. We will not achieve anything on broadband this year. No shovel will be placed in the ground and no home will be connected under the national broadband plan. However, I am sure the Minister will quickly issue a press release outlining the number of farms and post offices being connected every day and claiming that "We, the Government, are making all this happen". This is another example of claiming responsibility for corporate decisions by Eir, SIRO, Virgin Media and other providers. It is amazing that the Minister, on behalf of the Government, claims responsibility for something he has nothing to do with.

There is an ultimate failure to address the 540,000 homes without broadband. Nothing in the budget indicates they are any closer to being connected to a high-speed broadband service. It does not deter the Minister running along like the court jester, believing he is part of something great. Unfortunately it is no joke from a climate-change perspective. It is no joke, given the need for the country to face up to the challenges associated with our targets for 2020. It is certainly no help to the 540,000 households with no light at the end of the tunnel for a broadband connection.

Post offices also fall under this Department's remit. The Government initiated a process of engagement between postmasters, the Government and An Post. Bobby Kerr, an eminent businessman and a very practical person, published a report. At the time the Government signed up to it and indicated that it effectively planned a roadmap for the future of the post office network. Mr. Kerr suggested that An Post should consider what kinds of services are being delivered; whether a greater number of services could be delivered in post offices; and what would help to assist the An Post network to become more commercially viable. It was very clear that it would need Government support and intervention if the Government believed in having a widespread post office network.

I had an opportunity to visit a post office in the constituency of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan. I am sure he is well aware of the importance of the retention of the post office in Old Pallas. I met old people there, some of whom voted for the Minister of State. They are the same kinds of people I meet in my constituency every week. They recognise that people are not going into and out of post offices the way they did years ago. Therefore viability is an issue. Even if only 50% of the transactions now happen electronically, including social welfare and pension payments being transferred directly into their banks, it is not appropriate to close that post office. What do we say to the other 50%? Even if it goes as low as 20% of the activity that was there previously, it is not right to say to the remaining 20%, "Tough, it is no longer viable". That is the State turning its back on people.

The Taoiseach referenced it the other day and he knows the importance of keeping the harp over the door in those communities. Unless the Minister, Deputy Naughten, steps into the ring at some point, post offices will close by stealth. Every week post offices are being reviewed on a three- and five-year basis. The number of transactions is dropping. They are subcontractors to An Post and their money is cut because their activity has gone down. They cannot survive and are closing the doors themselves.

If the Minister, Deputy Naughten, believes that this somehow absolves him from responsibility, if he somehow thinks that because the contractors have made the decision themselves to close then that it is okay, I have news for him and for the Government. It is not okay because the people who still require the service are voters and taxpayers pensioners and social welfare recipients. They have a stake in society. They might not gel with the Minister's friends in Google for which he is acting the court jester this morning. These are real people who have made a contribution to the State and they deserve to be respected. They are entitled to the same services as everybody else who might be more computer literate, and more mobile and connected. They are real people and they deserve a service.

I believe that the 1,000 to 1,100 post offices we have is about right. An Post will not be able to maintain that network if it is forced to do it from current activities. It will require intervention from the State. I believe it probably requires between €8 million and €10 million a year from the central Exchequer. That is not a number picked from the air. The Kerr report had costings of between €50 million and €60 million over a five-year period. Therefore, €8 million to €10 million - it might cost more if people seek to retire - would protect the network for the next five years.

No line item in the budget allocated to the Minister, Deputy Naughten, would suggest he is cognisant of the challenge facing the post office network or that he has any intention of committing resources from the central Exchequer to support the network. He will utter fine words. When, a number of years ago he and the then Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ring, quibbled over who had responsibility for the post office network again, in another shouldering up or manning up, he said he would take on the network. He took it, all right. He took political responsibility but he certainly did not support it with any level of finance, which is very disheartening for the men and women who are attempting to keep the post offices open, who believe in their communities, and who care about the people who use the post office. In many cases it is their only social interaction.

If we devalue that as a society, run headlong after the smart economy, of which I am a supporter, and somehow distance ourselves or become entirely dislocated from the people for whom that is not a way of life, then as politicians we will have lost our way. We must be able, as Deputy Durkan has said, to represent all the people all the time. That is our duty and our responsibility. Of course I am all for technology, but the Minister is not following through on that side either. He is dragging his heels in respect of the people living outside the areas that the commercial operators see as suitable for service provision on a commercial basis. He has succeeded in creating the most complex tender and procurement procedure ever organised by Government. He is right when he says this is taxpayers' money that must be protected, but surely to God it can be done in a more time-efficient way. We are now down to two contractors, such is the cumbersome nature of the way in which he has allowed this process to develop. He somehow believes that because it is complex and he has all the jargon, words and acronyms, that somehow confuses people. I have news for him: it does not. All they want to know is when the Government will treat people who live in rural areas fairly, and they are not being treated fairly. There is no roadmap, no start date for the work to begin on the national broadband plan, no date by which contracts must be signed, no date for a contractor to start and no finish date. Project management 101 would suggest that the first thing one does on any project, after having scoped it and understood what one wants to do, is to pick a start date and, if hiring a contractor, to put on a calendar a date by which the contract will be signed. Even if there is a bit of mission creep and the project goes on for an extra week or an extra month, one gets over that - but one sets a target. There must be a target date for the contract to be agreed and signed, a target date for the work to begin and a target date for it to finish. However, the Minister is too afraid to put a date in the calendar because he would then have to accept political responsibility for failing to meet that date. This is why I term the Minister a court jester. He is there for the good times, the laughs and the opening of various events but not prepared to put his neck on the line, get behind the project and bring it to a conclusion. This is so serious in terms of the impact on our climate and our post office network and, unfortunately, as I said, the Minister has failed abysmally.

Then there is the issue of the climate change targets I talked about. There is nothing in the budget about this. The Minister talks about a renewable electricity support scheme, RESS, in the context of the renewable heat scheme, for which €17 million is set aside. This also includes the cost of the roll-out of electric vehicles. This is an absolutely minuscule amount of money for that initiative. It goes nowhere towards meeting our targets. Yes, there is some money - I will give credit where it is due - to expand the energy efficiency programme by investing an additional €35 million in the residential, commercial and public sectors for the reduction of CO2 emissions from the built environment. This and anything else that can help in this regard are welcome because we are falling way behind in use of renewables in heat, but these are just minor amounts of money in the context of what we must achieve by 2020. The Minister is used to saying to advocacy groups that he may not be the Minister next year. He may not be next year or in two years' time, but some representative cabinet will have to face the fines from Europe in 2020. If the Minister's view is so short-term that he does not believe he will be the Minister by then and, therefore, the matter does not really trouble or worry him, it shows the kind of poor ambition of the Taoiseach if he is not prepared to drive the Minister in reaching his responsibilities. It is appalling.

Another area, which I may not have enough time to address adequately, is public service broadcasting. This is handled principally by RTE, but many of our local and regional radio stations carry out, under licence, a very important role in public service broadcasting. I have a Bill which I have shared with the secretariat of the House, which I hope will come before the House relatively shortly and which I hope will get support from the other side of the House. It would see financial support given to public service broadcasters in the independent radio sector. There is no indication in the budget that the Minister is even considering this. He has a consultation process around the collection of the television licence fee. We are way behind every other country in Europe in the collection of our licence fee. About 15% or 16% is not collected. RTE is looking for additional money and the local radio sector is looking for money. There is a pot of money out there if only it were collected. This could be done through the Revenue Commissioners - simple - but the Minister has another consultation process and another procurement process and, by the time it is all resolved, I suppose he will not be Minister anyway so it will not matter.

What we need are decisions, and usually decisions that are taken are identified in the Finance Act and the Budget Statement because decisions usually require money. If the Minister, Deputy Naughten, representing the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, intends to take decisions, they will be of a very woolly nature because he has identified few if any changes in his budget for next year to achieve anything in an area that is crying out for action.

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