Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

All of the Deputies in this House were canvassed for funding in the last few months before the budget. I will highlight some of the local aspects first. I refer to SOS Kilkenny, which is a group funded under section 39. It looks after disabled people from the time they are children right up to adulthood. In Carlow-Kilkenny in 2015, there were 4,521 respite overnight stays. In 2018, there were 1,721, which is a drop of 2,800 respite nights. That totals a 62% decrease. This group is trying to look after people and their parents. It is short of money and is trying to fundraise to maintain its activities. I have written to the HSE, the Ministers and everyone else. Budget time is the time to talk about funding.

I would like to talk about the ten community support care homes or residential care centres in Carlow-Kilkenny, eight of which are in Kilkenny and two in Carlow. We are lucky in that we are ahead of most of the rest of the country in that respect. The centres look after elderly people as well, mostly people who live on their own and have nobody to look after them. Hundreds of such people are being looked after. Those centres too, however, have to fundraise every day to keep helping these people. My colleague in County Kilkenny, Deputy Phelan, welcomed some Ministers there recently. They went around and saw the service these centres provide to people. If these people were not being looked after in these care homes they would be in private nursing homes or in hospitals. That would place a great burden on the State. Something needs to be done to give these centres the small amount of funding necessary to keep the service on the road. If that funding is not provided, then some of these community centres will have to close. I ask the Minister to look at this issue.

I also met representatives of Horse Sport Ireland recently. That organisation is doing a great job, in Ireland and all over the world, to further the Irish thoroughbred horse sector. A small amount of money would also help that organisation. Such an investment would be rewarded a hundred times over. Finally, I will mention the No Name Club in Kilkenny, which is also looking for a small amount of money under section 39. It was set up some years ago and it keeps young people from drinking by providing alternatives to alcohol. I mention these issues because they are local and this is the appropriate time to highlight them.

I want to turn to the budget in general now. I have concerns about the carbon tax measures introduced yesterday. The devil is always in the detail and we are still crunching the numbers and digesting much of the information. The increase to the carbon tax, however, will disproportionately affect rural Ireland. That is where I come from. I understand that climate change is an important issue, but I do not believe the Government has thought through how this measure will affect some people more than others. It could have made more of an effort to research the effects of these increases and worked harder to find some sort of middle ground. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance have stated that the tax will be introduced gradually to allow those affected to plan ahead. The attitude seems to be that carbon tax will be increased and people should plan accordingly. That kind of hands-off approach, however, will not work. The Government needs to engage in widespread public consultation with a view to taking ownership of the tax hike. It should also take a leadership role in assisting all sections of society to plan ahead for further increases set to be introduced annually. If the Minister has really been informed by the experience of water charges, as he claims, then surely he will see the importance of engaging with the public, hearing their concerns, learning of their needs and respecting them. He must then take definitive action.

Rural communities in general are disappointed at the increase in carbon tax. This tax, which is designed to change behaviour, will probably have a limited effect because most people cannot afford to change to the more expensive alternatives or dramatically retrofit their homes. The cost is even greater for those households dependent on home heating oil. A retrofitting grant should be examined and those grants, at an appropriate level, need to be made available across the board. It is especially important that they are made available to those on lower incomes who are reliant on fossil fuels to heat their homes.

Fine Gael's own Deputies have mentioned that this tax will disproportionately affect rural Ireland. Deputy Kate O'Connell, who is based in Dublin, stated yesterday "that the Government is very aware that there are people who will be burdened with a huge tax bill, particularly those in rural Ireland who rely on solid fuels". She went on to state that "supports for retrofitted homes in rural Ireland would give support to people living in these homes so that they are not faced with a large bill". A rural-based Deputy, Marcella Corcoran Kennedy, also admitted that "a massive retrofitting program is required across the country". She put forward Offaly, her own county, and the midlands in general, as a fantastic location for the pilot which has been proposed. That was before she admitted that the people of rural Offaly will be disproportionately affected.

It is widely accepted across all sides of the House that the farming and haulage sectors are among the most exposed to Brexit, but the cost of doing business will rise significantly for them, and increasing the carbon tax at a time when the margins could not be tighter is the last thing they need. Will the Minister of State provide clarification on the rebate? There are different rumours going around. The rebate is 6.5 cent per litre at the moment. I am being contacted by hauliers today asking if it has gone down to 5 cent per litre. I would like to have that clarified. That would be a massive decrease at a time when Brexit is coming around the corner and hauliers will be affected more than anyone else because of that.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, has stated that farmers using green diesel on their farms will not be overly disaffected by the rising taxes, as they will be entitled to a refund through the tax system. We need more concrete detail on this as urgently as possible. It is important to note that not every farmer has a green diesel supply on their own farms, especially small farmers. People might not believe that but farmers do not have their own supply in many instances. They have to get it from their local supplier because they are not big enough to afford tanks of 300 gallons or more.

Commuters will have to endure a significant increase in their travel to work costs. They are hard-working people of the squeezed middle who are already keeping the economy going, and have done so for years, especially during the economic downturn. They have been forgotten in every Fine Gael budget, and I expect it will plough on as normal. The Taoiseach has done nothing for these people since his famous quote about being a Taoiseach for those who get up early in the morning. I have spoken to farmers in Kilkenny. Neither father nor mother may see their young children, who are commuting to Dublin, except for maybe a few hours every day during the week. This needs to be looked after.

I know I am out of time so I had better stop there, even though I could keep going for another while, especially when talking about farmers. I have a lot more to say about the situation with the beef sector etc., but my time is up.

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