Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There are many threads to this budget but there was no tapestry woven today. I will start by looking at those positive threads that one would welcome because it is important that we achieve the balance in politics of recognising where something is done right.

I was glad to see the relatively significant increase in overseas aid funding. It is critical for this country, particularly when we are in receipt of €9.5 billion funds in corporation tax which largely comes from our location. As the domestic centre of companies that deal in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, we more than anyone else have an obligation to meet those development goals and set 0.7% of our income to overseas aid. We are nowhere near there yet but if we repeated this next year, the year after and in subsequent years, and really went for that, it would serve our country well. It would say something. It would back up what we did by signing the sustainable development goals in New York negotiated by an Irish civil servant. I welcome that increase and I hope that we can repeat it next year and subsequently.

I also welcome the investment in people with disabilities. It is hard sometimes to judge what is the clever and correct economic choice. If one looks back over the past 20 or 30 years, much of our funding was spent on health, education and social welfare. That, in the long run, can really strengthen an economy. We want an economy which is not merely about how much one can earn so that one can flaunt consumption, but how we can create a society where our economy supports those who have to care, and in doing so improve the environment and society, that my security is enhanced when the Minister's security is also provided for, and that society benefits when we support and look after the weakest among us. I welcome that spend.

Similarly, I welcome the investment or putting aside of money in the rainy day fund. I have been in government at times when we had incredibly difficult choices with €6 billion in cuts to make and I would have loved at that time had we had €2 billion that we could turn to. In the proper economic approach where one acts counter-cyclically, the Government has that fund which it is allowed to spend within the European rules. I understand that this rainy day fund will allow us to expand spending at the time when the economy is contracting.

I am worried, I will be honest, that in this time of phenomenal growth - 7.5% growth is remarkable by any international comparison - we are still not in surplus and are still allocating an additional €1 billion next year to health. I do not dispute the need for health spending but it is of concern that we are seemingly unable to generate a surplus when one would think in this circumstance we would. For that reason, I welcome the investment in the rainy day fund.

When I read it first and heard the Minister speak, I said to myself that some of the investments in education were the sort of measures we were looking for. I refer to the increase in provision for capitation fees so that the vision of the late Minister and former Deputy, Donogh O'Malley, is carried out in full and one will not have parents wondering how can they afford books and transport. When one looks at it and does the maths on it, however, one realises that what is being provided for is not enough. It is so many threads but not, as I said, forming a tapestry by concentrating spending in a certain area. I wish we had gone further in education, particularly in that payment so that parents would not have to pay for primary and secondary school education.

Similarly, when I saw the €150 million investment announced for third level education, I said it is not enough but at least it is a step in the right direction. When one does the maths afterwards, again one realises that because the numbers of third level students are rising so dramatically there is no real increase. We need an increase for our economy to be strong and to stop the slide of our universities down the international league tables. I understand the main reason for that is the considerable change in the staff-pupil ratio in our third level colleges. The only way to address that is to provide the additional resources so that we teach in smaller classes, in tutorial systems rather than large lecture theatres. The funding announced today simply does not do that. It is not enough. I would prefer to have withdrawn one or two other threads and to put funding into that to give a clear signal to the rest of the world.

More than anything else, there is a certain shock among those in the environmental community as to the signal that went out today with regard to the Government's attitude to climate change. It should not be a shock to us because we are battling this day in, day out. I refer to the story around this carbon tax being pulled. It seems, at the last minute, because the Independent Alliance was unhappy with it and Fine Gael, similarly, took a political calculation that it would gain electorally from it rather than lose, they pulled it. That was a shocking decision. It is not that the carbon tax in itself was the key measure for us to take action on the issue. It is a useful tool, but it is only that. It is only one of many that we need to turn to. The fact that it was dumped at the last minute in this way sends a signal which is seen as a symbol of the Government's entire outlook and approach to the climate change issue.

The Minister's argument that we need to conduct further research, I will be honest, really stuck in the craw because this is the day after there was an international report that could not have been clearer. He must have been making his decision at the same time, if he was listening to the news or reading any newspaper of note, that the alarm bell sounded. In that decision, Fine Gael has hit the snooze button and said, "We do not care."

It was the same day, if the Minister wants economic analysis, that the Nobel prize for economics was awarded to Professor William Nordhaus, who is an expert and who has been writing for years on how one introduces a carbon tax. There is no shortage of research to show how one does this. It would have been easy to have that done over the months. It was done by the Department of Finance - the tax strategy group produced a paper. We do not need that much significant additional analysis.

I was glad to hear the Minister on the radio this evening say he really wants to go to €80 a tonne, but waiting for 2030 to do that and putting off the day when we start to take action on climate change will cost us all dearly. It is a terrible mistake.

The Minister could have read the work that Professor John FitzGerald, Ms Sue Scott and other notable economists did here more than ten or 15 years ago, showing how one applies a carbon tax, and that if one redistributes the money by investing in clean technology solutions and in retrofitting people's homes to make them energy efficient and ensuring that one addresses the issue of fuel poverty, it has a net economic benefit.

This is good for the economy. The analysis has been done. We have done it before and know how to do it. It could have been done at the flick of a switch or stroke of a pen but Fine Gael, because it does not care about climate change, said it will leave that out. This is because the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross, wanted that. His only other thread in this budget seems to be the granny flat grant. According to breaking news, just one granny, in Clondalkin, will benefit from this new approach. That is a dramatic win for the Independent Alliance along with its scuppering of climate change action.

The Minister for Finance said in his speech that he wants to put in place a trajectory in line with the recommendations of the climate action committee. I am working on the committee and am very glad to be part of it. It is doing important and interesting work. Anybody who wants to follow that work should start by reading what was said by Ms Marie Donnelly, former head of renewables and energy efficiency in the European Commission. She made a presentation to the committee three weeks ago. It was a superb example of how, with an attitude of opportunity, ambition, endeavour and willingness to take risks, make mistakes and think big, what I propose is doable and good for our country. Ms Donnelly outlined the practical measures we could and should be taking. She advocated we should begin by stopping the use of fossil fuels in every Irish home and public building straightaway. As with everything Fine Gael is doing, it is putting this off for another ten years.

Also presented to us were the clear facts on the scale of the challenge we are facing. One cannot be exact about modelling but the best analysis we have from the EPA and SEAI is that, in the next ten years, we will need to reduce our emissions in areas such as transport, agriculture and domestic energy to about 400 million tonnes. Even if all the measures and additional steps the Government is saying it will take but which it will not were accepted, we would be looking at an emissions figure of 500 million tonnes. We are looking at 100 million tonnes extra that we have to cut. We might cut half of that by buying our way out using all sorts of funds and loopholes that the Government has negotiated with the European Union, but even if every single one of those was used there would still be a 50 million tonne gap. It is frightening and scary that when we asked public officials at the committee how they wanted to close the gap, they looked like rabbits caught in the headlights, not knowing what to say or do. Even more frighteningly, officials admit openly that there was no climate assessment of the national development plan, Project Ireland 2040, before it was agreed. How could this have happened in 2018 when the urgency regarding climate change is so clear? How did our political and public administrative system allow a country that is already ranked second worst in the European Union, next to Poland, to sign off on a national development plan that was not fit for the purpose of addressing climate change, which is the direction in which our economy has to go?

What can we do? We could have listened to the advice of the ESB when its representatives were before the climate action committee. It said we need to invest perhaps €25 million this year in high-speed electric vehicle charging points. There is talk in the national development plan about having 500,000 electric vehicles within 12 years but there was not a word today about what the State might do to make this happen.

We might have taken the advice of Professor John FitzGerald, who in his presentation to the committee said we should be spending €5 billion on our social housing stock to improve it and make it energy efficient, and to help the people therein to create cosy homes and get out of fuel poverty. This could have been started and launched today. It would take ten years to ramp it up but we should have started today with a new scheme, and not just continue with the old schemes, which were about small retrofitting measures. We need to think big. We are to get rid of fossil fuels in a generation. This is not a matter of tinkering at the edges. We need system change. There was none of that in the budget today.

The national development plan states we are to have 45,000 houses built per year by 2021 when in truth we are in the territory of the granny flat grant. Only a handful of houses are being built this year. That is reality and that is why I sighed, scoffed and said "shame" when the Minister said we would have massive reductions in our emissions by 2030. This is not backed up by the reality of what is happening on the ground.

On housing, I have not even started to talk about the absence of any discussion about cost-rental housing as the reformative change about which I have heard so many Deputies on this side talk. I know that, in their heart of hearts, some Fine Gael Deputies also understand it is not just a matter of keeping the current system going and boosting the figures but also a matter of changing the system. There is none of that.

We could have changed our housing approach by putting aside money in budget 2019 to put solar panels on every single school and public building in response to the call from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, yesterday. There was not a word about this energy transition today.

The position on transport is even worse. At at meeting of the climate committee, we heard there is not a single major public transport project in construction in Ireland today. With the exception of the Royal Canal greenway, there is not a single cycling project in construction today. While it is correct that we are increasing transport expenditure, as announced, it is expenditure on yet more roads. I am sure people driving on the N4 must think it is great that it will be upgraded but the traffic is heading towards a Dublin that is gridlocked and in which we are planning to take out people's front gardens to try to cope with all the cars. There is no vision as to how it could have a different system based on public transport, walking and cycling, as set out in the national planning framework. It was ignored in the national development plan and ignored even more today in the budget.

There are no public transport projects being built this year and there will be none next year either. While I would love to see the BusConnects project, as promised in the budget today, carried out and while I would like to hear it said we will start designing the cycling projects, we all know the cut in the carbon tax was reflective of an utter lack of commitment within the wider Dáil to that change. That is the problem.

On agriculture, I was glad last week to hear for the first time ever the chief executive of Teagasc recognising the reality that, in order to reach our climate targets and start playing our part, we would have to start considering changing tack and moving away from the policy of doubling everything, including dairy production, and massively expanding the beef sector and high-emissions agriculture. I am absolutely convinced that the alternative, the greener approach to agriculture, will pay Irish farmers better. Farmers are beginning to realise that and to see that the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy will allow us to start paying farmers properly for storing carbon, managing water and maintaining its quality, protecting biodiversity, allowing access to our land and providing high-quality food. The current system is not working. It may work for about 15,000 farmers but the wages of the other 120,000 are below poverty levels. The latter are ageing and the younger generation is not coming forward to take over. We need to transform Irish agriculture to give young people a sense of what the future entails. They are the people we will pay well and see at the front line of climate change action in this country. They are ready and able and will be brilliant at doing what is required but they need a bit of leadership and direction from the Government. We will not get that from Fine Gael.

Money was promised for forestry but there has been no thought put into changing the nature of forestry and no mention thereof. The IPCC report was correct in that there will be a massive amount of new forestry to try to avert the runaway climate change disaster that is unfolding. We have to do this in a way that is not just about repeating the process that saw monocultures, clearfelling, short-rotation crops and single-crop Sitka spruce everywhere. We should be setting ourselves the goal of filling people with hope and inspiring them to create forests that are a joy to walk through and that bring tourists to the country, protect wildlife, and provide really high quality timber. It may take another 50 years but, in our response, we need to think in that sort of timeframe. There is none of that in Fine Gael.

Some might ask why they should do what I propose or why they should heed the warning when the Americans, Brazilians and others are not following suit. In fact, one could point to every country.

In fact, one could point to every country. None is particularly good at this at present, which is really frightening. The Germans, whom everybody thought were brilliant with the Energiewende,are stuck now with their coal lobby needs. The UK had many early quick wins and was great on diplomacy but, similarly, it does not have a clever energy policy yet. Ireland is not alone. We are not the worst and we are not laggards. Fine Gael is the laggard, but the Irish people are ready, willing and able to do their bit. I am convinced of that. However, they need a Government that helps them and gives a lead.

What Mary Robinson said yesterday morning was right, although I do not know if the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, heard her. The simple point she made is that we do this because it makes us human. When we build a town, city, neighbourhood or community where the walker and cyclist are kings we create a social transformation. One gets a better space. I am old enough to remember what it was like on the streets in the 1960s and early 1970s, before there were so many cars. It was more human and socially richer. Similarly with energy, when we start to put a solar panel on everybody's roof, with a heat pump at the back, an electric vehicle at the front and people balancing, trading and creating their own power that will be empowering for us as human beings, as it will be when we create a landscape where every county, acre, parish and valley is special and is at the front line of the transition. The great advantage of the tackling climate change project is that it belongs to everybody. The response belongs to every political party, not to one and certainly not just ours. We must spread the belief that we can and should do this. We do it because it is special everywhere. It creates an urban environment that is special and a rural environment that is special. Everywhere is part of it because we are all part of the one integrated system that must rise to this incredible challenge.

We should be urging green in everything we do and we should do it for real, not just as a marketing ploy. If we do so, it weaves a cloth that is embroidered with dreams. It gives us a sense of purpose and a sense of being special as a country. We can and will be leaders in this, but we will not do it if we baulk every time a hard decision is required. We will not do it if we are afraid of making mistakes, and we will make mistakes. It will be difficult. However, in making mistakes we will be at the forefront of the industrial revolution that is happening. A better economy and a more humane society will emerge from it. This is the way the world and investment are going. As a sign, I heard this evening that we are about to launch our green bond tomorrow. I welcome that. It is another thread that gives one hope. The people in the bonds market say the reason they are doing this is that this is where the new economy is going. That is where the money is and it is what people want and expect a modern, enlightened, forward thinking country to be. In addition, it will be at a lower interest rate than if we were trying to raise money in the old fossil fuel economy.

We will be able to tap into it because people in Ireland are good at this transition. We are brilliant at balancing renewable power on a grid. We are good at efficiency. Our industry is relatively clean. Irish farmers are superb at managing their land. They should be given the chance and the signals to do it in a way whereby they are properly rewarded for storing carbon. Irish people are just as ambitious and keen to make this transition as any other people, if not more so. It is still a decent country with decent people who are willing to do the right thing, and in this budget at this time that would have been taking climate seriously.

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