Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I watched the summer economic statement of the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, with interest yesterday and the soundbites were "prudence" and "realism". We agree that the budgetary process should be both prudent and realistic but when I contrast the priorities outlined in his statement with the Government's approach to a number of pressing issues facing Ireland, talk of prudence rings slightly hollow.

The priority for this budget must be to address the crisis in housing, in the rental sector, homelessness, in mental health services, the waiting lists, people on trolleys and the Government's abysmal performance on climate change. If we are to tackle these issues in a prudent manner, the Government needs to accept reality and change course.

In housing, how prudent is it to continue to outsource social housing to private landlords instead of implementing a significant public housing programme? It will be €23.8 million more expensive than building houses over 30 years, according to research by Maynooth university released last year. Cost-rental housing would be more affordable for our citizens and could be funded off-balance sheet but the Government continues with an expensive, wasteful, ineffective developer-led housing model and that is not prudent.

On the health service or education, how prudent is it to pay for our young people to be trained as nurses, doctors or teachers only for them to emigrate in search of better terms and conditions of work, or for a better quality of life? We then have to spend huge money trying to fill staff positions in the health and education sectors from abroad. That is not prudent. Measures that appear to Government to be prudent in the short term might not be prudent in the long term.

On the question of the long term, there is just one mention of climate change in the summer economic statement document. The Government is looking for plaudits for putting €500 million away for a rainy day when our abysmal performance on emissions reductions and climate change means we will be paying that exact same amount in fines for missing our climate change targets, according to a report from Climate Action Network, released earlier this week. That is not prudent. The Government has given up on our 2020 targets but there has been no acceptance of, or planning for, the fact that we are facing enormous fines for non-compliance. Facing up to this fact is a very necessary part of any economic realism and is the prudent thing to do.

The Minister needs to provide a comprehensive plan as to how he will account for the money for the significant fines we will face for not meeting these targets. In the report from Climate Action Network, Ireland was ranked second worst in Europe at tackling climate change, ahead only of Poland. Everyone is aware that we are failing in climate change and failing terribly so why will the Government not face up to that reality? We are facing annual non-compliance fines of €500 million if we do not change course. What could we do with that €500 million? We could cut all public transport fares in half for all services on Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann. The money could build one new Luas line every year and we could have a Luas in Galway, Cork and Limerick with three years' worth of climate fines. Some 20,000 homes could be retrofitted every year with €500 million, the western rail corridor could be reopened, or 125,000 hectares of our degraded bogs could be restored or rewetted. Those projects are huge but they illustrate the scale of the fines we face unless the Government changes tack on climate.

I do not doubt the Minister's commitment to prudence and realistic budgeting but perhaps his Government colleagues have not got the message yet. There is an enormous contrast between his statement yesterday and the actions of the Government. If he is preaching prudence, the Government needs to change tack in a range of areas. I hope to see that change of approach as soon as possible.

See this speech in context