Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am glad of the opportunity to raise a few issues arising from the budget. I first will reiterate what my colleagues have said in respect of social welfare payments. People are very hurt and angry about the meagre extra amount they will now receive. They have been told that they will get €5 but it is not even clear if they will get that full amount. They will now have to wait for another six months, well into next year, and Christmas will have passed before they can get that extra money. Many of the increases in the budget will affect them in the meantime. Many people, then, are very annoyed and hurt over this.

We then come to the matter of the extra funding allocated to the Health Service Executive, HSE, to provide very important services. I stood here one year ago and said I hoped the €950 million allocated in that budget would not just be consumed by the HSE. Most of it was, of course, and we saw no results on the ground in Kerry, where people are still waiting for cataract operations, teenagers are waiting for orthodontic treatment and people are left on hospital trolleys. There are 21 people on trolleys in University Hospital Kerry today. Why are more beds not open in the new hospital in Kenmare? Why at times does Killarney Community Hospital not operate at full capacity? Why are only half of the beds open in the new hospital in Dingle? The land for that hospital was donated free of charge by a local landowner. It is terrible to think that the facility is not now being used for the purpose for which it was intended and there are offices in places where there should be beds. This is very wrong.

As for the fair deal scheme, the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, announced there would be fairness for farmers and those involved in the farming sector. A motion passed here in the Dáil several months ago even though the Government opposed it and Fianna Fáil failed to vote for it. It passed thanks to some of the colleagues to my right here who could see the need for fairness for the farming community. The Minister of State announced the scheme was to go ahead some weeks ago but I have seen nothing addressing it or no funding allocated for it in the budget. I was not happy with his statement to the national newspapers that a cap would be put on farms and farm residences for only three years. It is not fair to take an individual's farm into account in the assessment at all. If a mother or father has gone into a nursing home it is very unfair to think that the value of the farm would be adversely affected. The assessment should take into account the value of the residence alone, not the farm itself, in order that farmers can be treated equally to everybody else being assessed for the fair deal scheme. Farmers should get equal treatment and fair play.

In many such instances, people would stay at home if they could get home help. It is very difficult to get a second home help to come in in the morning or in the evening to operate a hoist, for example. This then demands the presence of family members to help the care assistant with this task, something that is not always possible. If it is no bother to get the fair deal scheme for these people, why not ensure they get more home help instead in order that they can stay in their homes longer? Anyone in a nursing home who is still in possession of his or her senses - some, sadly, do not - will say his or her one ambition is to be at home. Even if such people state the nursing homes are grand and lovely, they all will say they would rather be in their own home. Why not transfer some of the fair deal funding across to be used for more home help?

On the issue of stamp duty in rural Ireland, I very much regret that it is being applied to farmers who need to buy extra land and will not qualify for the exemptions. In order to stay in the running, farmers have to expand and drive on but many farmers who would like to do so will be hit by this 6% stamp duty. Likewise, a young fellow getting a site from his father on family-owned land will also have to pay this duty.

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