Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that many of the measures introduced today by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, are extremely welcome. The across-the-board increases on all social welfare payments will be of benefit to a considerable segment of our population. However, the ordinary working man is getting a smaller increase than those on social welfare, and that is very unfair. It is wrong: we must make it pay to go to work. I will return to that matter shortly.

I share the sentiments expressed by Social Justice Ireland, which has long advocated a guiding vision for Irish society based on the values of human dignity and pursuit of the common good. In its pre-budget submission it outlined how these values are central to the vision of a nation in which all men, women and children have what they require to live life with dignity and to fulfil their potential, including sufficient income, access to the services they need and active inclusion in a genuinely participatory society.

The VAT hike for the tourism sector is expected to cost the sector over €400 million. This is a retrograde step. During the week an increase to 11% was mooted. Why was there no such incremental increase? The step outlined by the Minister is very unfair. This really was a lost opportunity in terms of a just taxation regime for business and the tourism sector in rural Ireland. We were told today that the increase was necessary not only to generate greater income but also to avoid putting pressure on other areas of taxation. The Minister would have us believe that the tax increase is a like a golden goose that will help solve the chronic problems in housing, schools and health. This is a classic penny wise, pound foolish tax. There seems to be two Irelands - urban Ireland and rural Ireland. The minister tried to offset the damage that will be done by saying he is going to give additional funding of almost €50 million to help the tourism sector and to mediate that funding through the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. It was a sop to ensure that the Minister of Transport, Tourism and Sport would vote for the budget this morning. It is the same as saying that a person will have his or her legs broken, but will be given a nice new pair of crutches to help him or her along afterwards. We know from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport that tourism is one of Ireland’s most important economic sectors and that it has significant potential to play a further role in Ireland’s economic renewal. In 2016, tourism was responsible for overseas earnings, which are very important, of €4.5 billion. Combining the data from the domestic market and international visitors, total tourism revenue for the economy is estimated to be around €7.8 billion. The tourism sector supports 150,00 jobs in the accommodation and food sector alone, and overall employment in tourism is estimated to be in the region of 220,000. The Minister of State is a rural Deputy. He should know that this move is unbearable for rural Ireland. It is an awful body blow.

We also know from the most recent Central Statistics Office data that visits to Ireland rose by 10.9% to 9.584 million trips. Spending by visitors to Ireland also increased in recent years, with total tourism and travel earnings from overseas visitors, including fares, growing by 9.5% to €6 billion, an enormous amount. In light of this evidence, it is inconceivable that the Minister has now chosen to undermine the growth of the only sector in the State that has shown consistent growth and resilience for the last decade. A rise of 11% was flagged during the week. Why was it necessary to restore the 13.5% rate in one fell swoop? How out of touch is the Government? We sought and were promised rural-proofing in the programme for Government. This is not rural-proofed by any measure. How are rural or small hoteliers, tourism-related businesses, of which there are many, or community businesses going to survive now that this punitive rate has been reintroduced in one fell swoop? It will deepen the sense that we are living in two different economies, rural Ireland and everywhere else. That is patently obvious.

I refer to the provision of mental health funding. As we are aware, the programme for Government contains a commitment to improve the provision of mental health services. However, Tipperary, a huge county, does not have a single mental health bed. What does it mean when someone like Dr. John Hillery, a consultant psychiatrist and president of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland, says that he was forced to resign his role in the HSE because he and his colleagues were being ethically compromised? This is echoed by my colleague and his fellow county man, Deputy Harty. This is not the first time Dr. Hillery has raised these matters. Last year he pointed out that the recruitment issue facing the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and general psychiatry services was crippling the services. He noted that the terms and conditions of those working for the HSE were a major issue. It is highly unlikely that any of the measures introduced today will remedy that. We have an epidemic of mental health issues in Tipperary and throughout the country. The problem is the nature of the system itself. As I have said, Tipperary does not have a single mental health bed.

I welcome the increase in the limits for the GP visit card, but I want to know what measures will be taken to support general practitioners and our primary care settings. Our GPs need better access to diagnostics and better supports to relieve pressure on hospitals. This must be addressed because it has not been for a decade or more.

The Minister for Finance announced a raft of funding measures for housing. Yet despite 15 months of broken promises and seemingly endless announcements about how this plan is going to solve the crisis and increase provision of social housing, nothing has been achieved. The Simon Community's analysis has informed us that the increasing number of people entering emergency accommodation throughout the State in 2017 resulted in a budgetary allocation for homeless services of €116 million in 2018. This included an additional €18 million for wraparound services and running costs associated with the most recent emergency response mechanism, the family hub programme. The Simon Community demanded the upward revision of these allocations in budget 2019 to meet the needs of people who remain stuck in emergency accommodation and who will become homeless. However, because structural problems around eviction notices and the denial of effective mediation resolution remain, the problems look set to continue. I also note the blackguarding of our citizens by the banks, in spite of the fact we bailed them out and our children, grandchildren and probably great-grandchildren did too.

We have to accept the simple facts. The budgetary process to date has not been adequate to deliver the level of housing we need. The moves towards further engaging or assisting the local authorities announced to date have not worked. The problems in housing go beyond budgetary allocations. Can the Minister not see that? They require a major shift away from excessive reliance on the market and dependency on the private sector. That is obvious from several figures I have mentioned. I fail to see anything in the budget that addresses the ideology that is part of Fine Gael thinking. Sadly, the Independent Alliance has lost out badly.

I will now address the labour market and regional development. As the Minister informs us, the labour market is perhaps the best barometer of economic developments at present, given the many distortions in the headline gross domestic product, GDP, and gross national product, GNP, indicators. To this end, he says the Government will continue to reform the income taxation system to ensure work pays. The Government's approach, which is allegedly focused on low and middle-income earners, is to ensure steady and sustainable progress in reducing the income tax burden in the years ahead. On foot of that, changes made to the self-employed sector are very welcome even if they represent just one step in the right direction. The exclusion of the self-employed from accessing any social protection payments has been a scandal and an insult to those who provide employment for others but have no social protection safety net of their own. We need to see an expansion of this. This cohort suffered greatly during the downturn and recession.

The Minister also said that ensuring competitiveness is a key priority for the Government. This is why the Government says it is providing for a ten-year capital plan to address bottlenecks and promote balanced regional growth that will allow businesses and families to plan for the future. In response, I have to ask the Minister what planet he is living on. Achieving balanced regional development has been one of the singular failures of this Government. It has singularly and spectacularly failed in this area. I recently highlighted statistics from the EUROSTAT yearbook that demonstrated that more than 50% of Ireland's GDP, the total value of everything produced in the country, is generated in Dublin. This is despite the fact that an estimated 60% of the population lives outside of Dublin. When is the Government going to realise that Dublin is not Ireland? The Pale is not Ireland, and what is outside the Pale matters. Deputy Kyne is a Minister of State. He should be making these noises and having his voice heard.

Even the European Commission has observed that the figures here are way out of kilter with the majority of EU capitals. These are figures from renowned institutions. In fact, the Commission has pointed out that since 2004 the shift in economic activities towards Dublin was the second highest in the EU at 5.5%. When are we going to stop this? We are just trying to please our gods and masters in the EU. What we see in this budget is the total absence of an effective plan to redress the massive imbalance between Dublin and the rest of the State. We see that clearly with the smash-and-grab raid on the 9% rate for rural businesses and industries. This has to be addressed not only at Government level but also at EU level, where consideration might be given to the idea of making industrial or other types of grants conditional on development in rural Ireland. This would certainly be consistent with the EU's own agenda of making rural areas viable commercial and industrial centres.

In regard to education, the increase in the capitation rate by 5%, while welcome, is simply not sufficient to help schools meet their costs. This means schools will continue to rely on hard-pressed parents, parents' councils and boards of management to fund them. The announcement of 950 additional special needs assistants, SNAs, while welcome, does absolutely nothing to address the current concerns of people in this sector who have little or no job security and stability. The Minister knows better than I do that the SNAs currently employed in schools need to know that they will have a job come next September. The practice every year is totally unfair to them. What have we done to address pay inequality for teachers? This is a scandal in our time. Some teachers are like yellow pack workers, earning 30% or 40% less than their colleagues. This is outrageous. I thought the Government would make some attempt to start on this tosach maith leath na hoibre, but it made no attempt to do so.

In regard to childcare, the increase in limits for the affordable childcare scheme is, of course, welcome. However, it continues to fail to give all parents full choice in their childcare options. I have continuously called for a childcare tax credit that would allow parents full choice in how they care for their children. Parents who choose to care for their own children in their own homes must be supported. Instead they are being undermined. I also acknowledge the increase in the home carer tax credit by €300, which is, of course, welcome. However, it is not sufficient to make up for the loss of an entire income should one parent choose to stay at home to mind his or her children. It is nowhere near sufficient. There is blatant discrimination against parents in the home by this Government.

In regard to those on middle incomes, I said earlier I very much welcome the increase to €35,500 of the income above which earnings are taxable at the higher rate, together with the changes to the universal social charge, USC. These affect our middle-income earners, who over the last decade have become our working poor. Small business people and small farmers are our new poor. They work hard, they pay for everything and they get very little in return. These are the people who try to work overtime to meet the rising costs of living and are penalised for doing so by being brought into a higher tax rate. This little bit of relief will be welcome, but it will not be sufficient to ease the pressure on middle income earners. These are the parents who do not receive Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grants for their children, who struggle with childcare costs and who are paying mortgages and rising rents. They are the parents of sick children who do not receive medical cards or they cannot get medical cards themselves. If they have an underlying illness they struggle to meet rising insurance costs, and they are trying to support their adult children in meeting these costs as young adults cannot possibly do so. That is obvious. We do not need Social Justice Ireland to tell us that. Everybody knows that.

The increase in the disability budget is, of course, welcome but how far will it go to address the huge waiting lists. Young children with special needs are waiting 18 months or more for an assessment of needs but the Disability Act 2015 sets down in law that an assessment must be carried out within three months of application. What good is it having disability legislation and nice platitudes if the Government does not act on them? Even after assessment, children who require access to speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists are left languishing on long waiting lists, meaning that young children do not receive the early interventions they require so badly. I want a guarantee that extra funding will be put into employing more therapists and urgently reducing these waiting lists. It is a crying shame and an indictment on the Government.

Where is the reintroduction of the mobility allowance and motorised transport grant? The Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, railed about it for years when he was in opposition. Shame on him that it has not been reintroduced.

I appealed to the Government last week, and during previous budgets debates, regarding a land tax. Once again, the Government has ignored calls to introduce a land tax on holdings of more than 750 acres. With large conglomerates such as Coolmore buying up all the land in County Tipperary and surrounding counties, it has become increasingly difficult for young farmers and family farms to extend their farms because they simply cannot compete against these conglomerates that receive large tax breaks for their industry, such as stallion fees and other supports. They pay no tax. We must support our family farms and allow them to be able to compete, extend and grow. Farmers in County Tipperary cannot compete in the purchase of lands while the Coolmore empire continues to grow. It is well over 25,000 acres now. It is a crying shame. The Government refuses to tax it or touch it. What grip does it have on the Government that it will not do this? It did not do it last year in the Finance Bill but this year I will push hard to get it done because it creates an unfair playing field.

The cost of a packet of cigarettes has once again increased, which is welcome as a way to meet the huge health costs associated with smoking but it is no good as a revenue raising measure if we do not tackle the huge losses to the State as a result of the massive levels of counterfeit cigarette smuggling. The Government must continue to tackle the issue of counterfeit cigarettes in the market. The fines associated with smuggling must be increased drastically to remove incentives for smugglers.

Insurance costs for businesses and young individuals continue to cripple our country and I have seen nothing to address this. There was not a single reference to this huge blight on our economy.

I notice the Minister made no mention of the national broadband plan in his speech. I know the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment is embarrassed by what is going on. When will we get serious about the importance of broadband, particularly for businesses in rural Ireland, students and farmers trying to fill out application forms? It is discriminatory against rural dwellers. Rural-proofing is a farce. We are entitled to the same service, no more and no less, and the Minister of State should know this.

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