John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. It is timely and if it was Deputy Boyd Barrett who asked for it, he was perfectly correct in doing so. I cannot disagree with some of the points he made in his contribution. I say to the Government, and generally to Members of the House, that we have to look at not just what is happening today but also the forecast for Covid over the next 12 months. The decisions we take cannot be withdrawn as quickly as they might be in other circumstances. They are decisions to support people. The decision being made today is not correct. I think people have an awful lot of negativity going on in their lives. They deserve the support that they should get from a Government to ensure that their quality of life remains somewhat stable during a time of great instability. This offers an opportunity to change and reform. Telling the truth would be one of the changes or reforms I would suggest, as would abandoning the politics of spin because that is what we have got into. Instead of talking about the broad spectrum of problems and the figures at macro level, we should look at the lives of people. Let us look at what is happening out there.

Kids cannot go to school on buses. They are being left on the side of the road. They cannot afford to pay the bus fares, or they have been late paying them, and we are doing nothing for them. They will be deprived of days of education and we do not respond to it. I say this knowing that good stuff was done in terms of Government and supports, but other stuff was not done or has not got down to impact the lives of people, as it should, or as quickly as it should.

One could take nursing homes as an example. During debate in the Covid-19 committee, we discovered the terrible abuse in nursing homes and the terrible lack of proper governance and care for elderly people, whom we all declare we support and acknowledge for the contribution they have made in this country. We spoke of the meat plants and the terrible issues that exist there, yet the Government was slow in doing anything about those plants. Then when it did something it was too little and too late, and now we have further clusters breaking out in various plants, including one in Waterford today. We learned that the inspections were carried out with notice given. Who notifies someone that they are going to come and audit them? They just arrive and audit, if they are serious about their job.

Children have been damaged in the course of this pandemic. I refer in particular to children on the autistic spectrum who have gone through their assessments, have turned to the HSE for support and services and have been told it will take years because of the length of the list on which they find themselves. Even though we are spending huge amounts of money on other parts of the economy, those who are marginalised and less well off and those who are on waiting lists are the ones who are suffering because they are being neglected and overlooked and the appropriate levels of funding are not being sent to the parts of the HSE where professionals are waiting to expand services.

If we are serious about the bus industry, the coach industry, chauffeurs and the like, surely to God we should be setting out for them a pathway of support according to which they can plan and on which they can rely. That is not being done in any realistic way. Those who are over 66 and still working but on a pension have been treated very badly. We all know this and have raised the issue here ,but again nothing has been done. Travel agents have appealed to every one of us in this House for understanding and supports and have not got what they require to keep their doors open and keep jobs in many rural towns and villages. Local authority funding has been dramatically affected by Covid.

Incomes have dropped, commercial rates are not being paid and businesses are not performing. They cannot because they have no customers or they are regulated in such a way that it is not worth their while opening. These are the basic issues that need to be addressed. We cannot claim success until we raise the boats of those who are marginalised and in need of State help.

The other side is the expenditure side in terms of what we do in this House. I have put down many parliamentary questions and I am talking about the truth. They take a lot of money to process, to answer and to deal with. That system has gotten worse. The amount of nonsense information included in a reply in order to deflect from the question and not to answer it is truly shocking. We pay civil servants to write these replies and send them out and the replies are next to useless. We stand over it and accept it. I do not accept it because it is a bad reflection on this House and it is a way of avoiding a serious issue that a Member might have when he puts down a parliamentary question which should provide an answer.

We set up tribunals and inquiries and I have asked on numerous occasions to raise a question about these and to bring it in as a topical issue. I have never been successful. Yet the questions remain about Shane O'Farrell's murder on the road. Why have the terms of reference not been agreed to allow that tribunal to go forward? The name of John Barrett was mentioned here by the Minister for Justice and Equality and reference was made to a tribunal to find out what is happening in his case. Nothing has been said to this House in relation to that tribunal. Frank Mulcahy is a similar case. To show the disregard that Government and politics have for those who are so marginalised that they have very poor representation, just look at what they are doing in the Grace case. It is an utter scandal that people who were non-verbal, marginalised and sexually and physically abused should still be waiting on the result of that tribunal. Yet the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, or the Minister of State, Deputy Anne Rabbitte - I am not sure which - signed another extension of that tribunal.

If we are going to do things right, we need to look to the first responsibility that a Government has, which is to keep its people safe. For many years and many Governments, that has not been happening. This House is used as a sounding board or relief valve for people to get up, including myself, and say whatever they want on a particular topic or an issue in their own constituencies. One might as well be whistling past the graveyard, because the response from Ministers is generally one that is handed to them by a civil servant. These Ministers were at one time in opposition and calling for all of this but in government this is their only answer. I do not blame the civil servants. I blame the political system for the manner in which it ignores the true value of this House and of the democracy that caused this House to be put in place and the Members elected to it. Regardless of how many speeches are made about reform, controlling expenditure, a sensible spend and supporting people, it all falls on deaf ears. I have yet to meet a Minister or Government that will proactively pursue an agenda of reform and control of expenditure that is worthwhile and that brings about resolution, reform and understanding of what the people we represent are going through.

I have raised specific issues around businesses and the core of the problem is that, for the foreseeable future, the businesses that work, are profitable and pay taxes will be few and far between, except for the bigger ones. We will have less of a tax take and, therefore, less to slice up to support those in society who need supports most. We have to keep those businesses going. We have to understand each sector and make sure they get paid and supported accordingly. We have to make sure workers and their rights are acknowledged and supported. We have to ensure that we invest now when that money is accessible in terms of rates and our credibility for raising money and so on, because we will not have the taxes.

There are two Green Ministers here. Whatever happens in this budget, they cannot say, for the sake of climate change and doing something about it, that they will put a tax on somebody and make their life worse. I want to see change and reform. I want to support a green agenda, renewal, green jobs and so on but, above all, I want to see politics change to the extent that those who cannot put the dinner on the table, those who have difficulty with their children and the elderly who find it hard to make ends meet no longer have to suffer. Whatever cake is there to be divided up in the context of this budget, we must start with the less well-off and make sure they are okay so that by the time the Government has allocated its money, the only ones left are the ones that are okay or can be okay. We need to deal with the waiting lists and provide the quality of life the people we represent deserve. We need to deal with those issues. If it deals with the minor issues, the ones that are causing the difficulty, then the Government will bring the people with it. At the moment it seems to be a Government for the few, while the rest suffer and are misunderstood in terms of their lives.

We have to remember that not everybody marches to the same mad drumbeat. There are those in society who like to take it easier and those who cannot or will not work. We have to reflect all of what is in society in the decisions we make in the budget. No more bluff or spin. Tell the truth.

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