Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ar an gcéad dul síos ba mhaith liom mo chomhbhrón a dhéanamh le clann Emma Mhic Mhathúna agus na daoine go léir. On this very sad day I want to express my sympathies with the children and extended family of Emma Mhic Mhathúna.

This budget represents a missed opportunity to really connect with the people who need support. While everyone has received a little bit, it is not enough. The Government has produced an election budget; it has one eye on an election and the other on popularity. On housing, I heard the Tánaiste, Deputy Coveney, the former Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, speaking on the radio this morning, advocating that we should keep doing the same thing and throw money at the problem. There have been no positive outcomes from that approach. There have been some outcomes, for example, the housing assistance payment, HAP, which people are being forced to use, and in terms of buying houses. Ordinary people who want to buy houses are being priced out of the market. It is folly. The Government has failed to ask, allow or coerce the county councils to build houses, as they always did through the decades. I do not know what has gone wrong. There is an ideological reason for this, as Deputy Clare Daly mentioned. The Government does not want the local authorities to intervene. The attitude seems to be to let them eat cake, and that the ordinary people can suffer and can wait.

The Government refuses to deal with the bailed-out banks. AIB has reported a profit of €750 million for six months of last year and almost €1.5 billion for the full 12 months. The Government is getting ready to sell that bank, which is another ideological disaster. My children, grandchildren and grandchildren's children will be paying for those banks through their pain and sweat. What is the Government doing? Ar aghaidh libh; it can do what it wants. It should tax the bank on the profits it is making.

It beggars belief that ordinary people are being penalised. People are being forced into the rental sector where their rents are being driven up. There are various caps in place. Rebuilding Ireland is a failure but the Government will not admit it. It keeps doing the same thing. Mahatma Gandhi said that doing the same thing and expecting the same result is madness. It is folly, and the Government is devoid of thought and ambition. The officials in the Department are the same. They have become too cosy over the decades and are not able to get out, roll up their sleeves and get on sites to allow the enablers to do their work or to support the small builders.

The living city tax should be extended to all of the rural towns in the country. No town should be ignored. There are many vacant spaces, and I believe that any shop that has been closed for ten years should be converted into accommodation. Such a move would do two things. It would revitalise buildings and town centres and bring people back into town centres, bringing life back into them. At the stroke of a pen, we could insist that county managers do away with the prohibitive 50% planning and development charges. Something could also be done about VAT, as I asked for in the programme for Government talks. The former Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, said that could not be done because there could not be varying rates of VAT. There are many creative ways to charge VAT, as we saw with the measure taken in the hospitality sector last night. If the Government does not want to give the dividends from this to the builders and developers, which I can understand, it can be passed on to those who buy these properties. They are going to spend money in the local hardware shop, employ local tradespeople and regenerate local economies. This is simple thinking, but the Government is blinded by spin doctors. I note that €1 million has been allocated to the Department of the Taoiseach in this budget for staff and expenses, at the drop of a hat.

The Government has failed abysmally on housing. The Minister of State can smile as much as he wants to. The Government has a sad record on housing, and it is reflected in what is happening around the country. The old reliables were also hit. Alcohol, diesel and fuel where left alone because there will be two or three increases before Christmas. The price of fuel is exorbitant. From that point of view I welcome the fact the carbon tax was not changed, but I am aware that it will have to be discussed because of climate change. The Government is putting labels on bottles of drink and introducing stupid regulations. It is nonsense. The real issues which matter to people are their wage packets, good living conditions, being able to live a life with a modicum of decency and with a roof over their heads, being able to educate their families and being able to get employment. The Government, despite all the different schemes it has announced, has failed miserably on those issues.

Turas Nua is brow-beating people who have been on schemes for five or six years and have made huge contributions to their communities and who want to get back into the workforce. They do not want to be placed in jobs they have no interest in by Turas Nua. Turas Nua wants to get paid for every job it fills. I call it turas uafásach. It is an awful journey. It is not fair to push people who do not have literacy skills into computer rooms and into companies. The concept was bad in America and bad in England, but of course we adopted it here because big business came along and coaxed the Government into it. The Government is in bed with big business people. AIB and other banks pay no tax on their profits. The people own AIB; they have put their sweat, blood and tears into it. People have developed mental health issues because of the actions of the banks, the third force, and the sheriffs and many people have gone to their graves having committed suicide. People are being mistreated, and when they stand up relentless force is applied to them.

I have raised the issue of conglomerates for the last six or seven years. It arises in Tipperary in the shape of the Coolmore and the horse industry. It is a wonderful industry and has great prowess, with many expert jockeys and staff, winners and thoroughbreds. However, the Government has refused to tax the industry. It went to Coolmore in 2011, shortly after it was elected, and pulled into Clonmel to see what the industry was doing. Coolmore had Fianna Fáil in its pocket before that, and it now has this Government in its pocket. The Government has refused to tax stallion fees, a measure which was brought in by iar Taoiseach Charlie Haughey and which I commended at the time. He was a visionary leader and the measure was required, but the industry is now flourishing and a tax should be raised on it. An exit tax on intellectual goods was put in place last night. Stallions and stallion fees should be taxed as well, because the amount of money that is going into this industry from overseas is unbelievable. It is buying every perch and every half acre of land in Tipperary. Young farmers, medium-sized farms and family farms cannot operate or make their businesses viable or sustainable. We are missing an opportunity here, but the Government will not touch the industry at all. It is outrageous. It reminds me of the banks. The rich can get richer, but the ordinary farmers in Tipperary can go to hell or to Connacht.

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