Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I echo the sentiments of my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, about the engineering building in LIT. LIT is a fine establishment in Limerick. I studied there for a number of years and it is great to see it progressing under this Government.

I welcome the overall budget that was put before us by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. The area of County Limerick, in particular, that will benefit from it is the engineering building of LIT but other projects that also have received a boost include Limerick Prison, which had a redevelopment, Shannon Foynes Port Company, which will share in part of the connectivity funding that has been announced, and Troy Studios. Section 486C, which provides for relief on tax, has been extended to 2021, and will have a knock-on effect on the film and television industry in Ireland. Our arts are something to be celebrated but although we are starting to learn, we do not use them enough to promote our tourism.

We should migrate arts and sports over to other areas to foster communities and help people with mental health difficulties. That will help their emotional well-being and mitigate against stigma. There is a huge crossover between the arts and mental health, and I will continue to push that.

I also welcome the fact 800 new gardaí will be recruited. Rural crime has been at the top of the agenda for the past number of years. I live in a rural part of Ireland. The closure of the Garda college in Templemore had a major affect on parts of rural Ireland but it was reopened by the previous Fine Gael Government in 2014 and we are starting to see those gardaí come through, which I welcome. I have the utmost respect for what gardaí do each day in their jobs. They are very much an integral part of the community and I want to see them facilitated. I impress on the Minister, and the powers that be, that a weighting be placed on rural areas as well as urban areas. I am a huge believer in community gardaí. That type of on-the-ground intelligence is paramount. It is often local people who are feeding these roving gangs information and intelligence on what is happening on the ground. That is something we have been told of over the last number of years. They are also using the motorway network. We have to pinpoint it there.

Returning to the arts, the €75 million includes an increase of €7 million. This feeds into Project Ireland 2040 and the Global Ireland 2025 strategy on pushing out our footprint in tourism and in the context of Brexit.

I refer to attracting other markets in agriculture, by trying to grow our footprint throughout Asia. That is still an untapped market for Ireland. I congratulate the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, on signing the deal with China on access to that market earlier this year. We need to start pushing into more markets like that. We need to use the businesses we have there to create more demand for Irish produce. Our produce in the food sector is second to none and we have a signature story to tell about our agriculture in Asia. Countries there look to the West for premium-type food.

I want to talk about the €55 million increase in mental health spending. The Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care is about to complete work on a final report next week or the week after. I ask that the report be implemented as soon as possible, especially on IT systems, waiting lists, referral paths and recruitment. Those are the major issues we have found. Mindfulness, prevention and early intervention are also important. They are not just buzzwords. They need to be delivered. I recognise that the Ceann Comhairle sympathises with this, especially the mindfulness aspect. It has not gone unnoticed.

There has been much discussion and debate on a carbon tax. As the Tánaiste mentioned earlier, we need to learn from what happened when we tried to change behaviour with water charges. Bringing people along with us is real leadership and that is particularly the case with ca arbon tax. Whatever political affiliation we might have, climate change is going to affect us all down the line. It is not about dividing, but it is about bringing everyone together on that. I welcome the formation of the Joint Committee on Climate Action, of which I am a member. There are many ongoing discussions. I find it highly educational as someone who does not have a background in the area.

On the politics side, we need to be able to bring the people with us when we put these things in place. We need to have alternatives and we need to invest in them. If we had put up the price of diesel, petrol, oil or coal, consumption would not have changed. It would just have been harder on the pockets of those going out to work, old age pensioners, those on disability allowance and those trying to use solid fuel over the winter period. The carbon tax was not going to work. I heard the Green Party stating it would have sent a message, but it was not going to work in practice. We have to study the practicalities for the people on the ground. We need to bring people with us but we also have to provide credible alternatives. I understand climate change is upon us and it needs to be worked on but how we do that is important. I do not want to fall into the trap of what happened with water charges, that is, putting a tax in place to change people's behaviour. We have to have a bottom-up approach from our electorate. That will be a campaign in which it will be incumbent on all of us to play our part, regardless of political divisions in this House.

There have also been a number of initiatives announced in agriculture, which I welcome, particularly on the staffing and ICT needs on the regulatory side. That always needs to be worked on to make sure that applications get through as quickly as possible. I already mentioned the promotion of new markets. The existing stock relief has been renewed for three years to cope with income volatility. The extension to farms of income averaging with off-farm trading income is also welcome. A sum of €53 million is to be provided in capital for the first round of projects under rural regeneration and the development fund. Rural Ireland is getting more and more funding. I refer in particular to e-hubs in small towns. I remind the House that rural Ireland is not Limerick city, Cork city or even a big town Rural Ireland is the countryside itself, the small market towns with populations of 1,100 or 1,500. Those are the type of towns where we need to start putting in e-hubs. Many of those towns, and surrounding areas, as a result of the deal that has been done with the Government, now have broadband access as well. I welcome all the money starting to pour into rural Ireland through the Minister, Deputy Ring's Department of Rural and Community Development.

There is the town and village renewal scheme, as well as funding from CLÁR. The local improvement scheme, LIS, has increased over the last number of years and I see it in County Limerick. There is rural regeneration, €60 million for Brexit support and 800 gardaí being recruited. In education, 950 special needs assistants, SNAs, have been announced, which is very welcome.

Turning to corporation tax, I am very much a believer in holding it at 12.5%. I hear Deputies talking all the time about corporation tax and how corporations are getting away without paying tax but there is never a mention of the number of people employed in these organisations who are paying tax. In Limerick, the number of people employed in those corporations, the downstream industries and indigenous industries that have been set up because of people being employed in, and acquiring skills from, these multinationals is nothing to be sniffed at. We have to be very careful about the message we send out. That is especially the case against the backdrop of trade tensions globally and Brexit. I welcome the loans in respect of the effects of Brexit. We must mitigate against those risks not only for small to medium sized enterprises but also the agricultural sector.

I recognise that in health we have had a €1.5 billion increase in spending. On waiting lists, I will continue to campaign for a highly efficient text messaging system for "do not shows" in outpatient appointments. That should be done. We can use technology much more to our advantage. We need to be proactive, informative and have an integrated communications process to notify people on these waiting lists. I refer, in particular, to people who may have been on the list for a period of time and may not be able to attend. The same could be done with utilities. A text message could be sent to people ten to 15 days before an appointment, telling them to telephone if they have to cancel. Somebody else can be slotted in then.

I would like to challenge the line that was used in respect of the arts by some Opposition parties. I refer to the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market on copyright and content generation in the arts. Artists have been campaigning for this and Fine Gael has voted for the progression of this directive. Sinn Féin, however, has voted against it. I heard a Member say today that we are not giving enough to the arts. I do not understand why one thing is being said in one jurisdiction and something else is happening in another jurisdiction. Clarification on that would be very welcome. As I said at the outset, rural Ireland has had its challenges over the past number of years, particularly with emigration and recession. We are, however, starting to see an influx of people.

I welcome the increase in the sports capital tax, €35 million for tourism generation and €10 million for greenways. The great southern greenway is in County Limerick. I have said before that we need to enhance and upgrade that, using the greenway for cycling instead of country roads. I hope that is done.

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