Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this opportunity to speak on today's budget. Like most people who have spoken on the supports for businesses affected, I welcome what has been provided. The devil will be in the detail of all of this, however. I state that because many people this evening think that something like €5,000 will jump out to them every week if they are shut down. From what I have seen, however, over the last few years in politics, things do not come that handy. I am fearful of the red tape that will be involved in all of this.

I also welcome other aspects of the budget, such as those in the areas of the fuel allowance and the living alone allowance. One thing that struck me, however, when the Minister referred to business supports and infrastructure, was that only two ports were mentioned. Ireland does not work on only two ports, namely, Dublin and Rosslare. No mention was made of anywhere else, such as Cork, Foynes, Galway, Killybegs or Drogheda. Those places do not seem to exist. We seem to be once again tilting Ireland heading towards Dublin, and because the other port is included in the trans-European transport network, TEN-T, we will talk about it a bit.

Turning to the HSE, and I have heard the debate here this evening, we hear about all of this money being provided. I refer to €4 billion or €4.5 billion. Most of the beds, however, are already allocated. I think that is something like 120 beds or perhaps 130 beds. In the same way as is the case with the N4 in Sligo, that job is done. I am sick of listening to budgets over the last three years that have been concerned with that infrastructural road. It is done and dusted and the diggers are gone so let us not be announcing infrastructural works four or five times. We seem to be a dab hand at doing that.

There was talk about the giveaway budget today, but a few months ago there were kids, and some of them still are kids, who could not be carried to school because of the so-called green agenda. We talk, then, about the DART and intercity rail. We talk about everything. Let us go back some two months, however. What was wrong then that we would not bring those children to school? We are now, however, going to do the devil and all in putting money into this, that and the other. Many of these announcements are already programmed, such as the infrastructure for schools, which is all laid out over a five-year programme. We should be honest with people in what it is we are doing. Among many possibilities, I will call this endeavour today one thing.

It is a reckless budget which is trying to destroy rural people, middle Ireland and farmers. People from middle Ireland are the people the Tánaiste said get up early in the morning and go to work. They live in rural areas in County Galway or any other county and drive 30 miles or 40 miles every day to work, and their partners do the same. They have mortgages. Once their income is over €25,000, they can say goodbye to everything. The Minister should not say that they will get the carbon tax back if they are over €25,000. Let us not be codding them. Middle Ireland has been forgotten about. This budget will now cost those people approximately €300, and that is just living on the basics. The Government then tells them to get a car worth €30,000 when they can only afford one worth €4,000 or €5,000.

As regards the farming community, I welcome the extension to stamp duty relief. I welcome anything that is positive but in the farming sector, we do not know what kinds of tariffs will be laid out in Brexit. In 2019, we had the beef environmental efficiency pilot, BEEP, scheme and in 2020 we had one called BEEP-S. The Government is now after announcing a new scheme in the budget and says it is a new thing altogether, but it is not. It is just a new name for the scheme and it will be called the beef sector efficiency pilot, BSEP, instead of BEEP or BEEP-S. The bit of tomfoolery that goes on in the wording of a document does not cod people. That is the same money that was there this year and last year. It is only a continuation. We will be looking at a new REPS-type scheme but €20 million only covers about 3,000 farmers. There are 130,000 farmers in this country and the Government believes it is going to pressurise them constantly to save the planet.

As regards transport, look at what happened today. We are now going to try to haul our beef and different farm products, because whether people like it or not all our food is hauled, either within a city or out the country. We are putting an extra carbon tax on them to make sure we skull them a bit more and so we will not be as competitive as Britain or some other country. Shutting down the rural side of it seems to be the agenda the Government is following. The Minister should think tonight of the couple whose income is over €25,000. Let one person show me what they get back. They have to pay for college, pay their mortgage and carbon tax, and now they will pay more car tax because the Government is going to screw them that way as well. It will keep pulling from the people who are keeping the country going and who keep sending the money in, because they are the quiet ones. They have to get up early every morning and do not have time to talk.

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