Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have reflected on this budget. It is an enormous amount of money - €18 billion. No doubt one has to welcome many of the measures in it. What is missing, as I said yesterday, is the transformative action needed.

More than anything else, the greatest challenge facing us is climate change. It must permeate all our actions, and yet we have associated it with a negative tax, a carbon tax, at a time when the loudest and clearest message from the Government is to not use public transport. Do not go near public transport or do so at your peril is the advice, but then we introduce a higher carbon tax. It is not a good message to send out.

I welcome so many of the measures, including the commitment to end direct provision and the extra funding for disability. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will remember Ability West. It wrote to us all and asked for the training fund to be put back. That would have been a measure of our bona fides in terms of empowering people and having a more equal society. Maybe somewhere the Minister of State could find that tiny amount of money to show that we are serious, not about charity and not about giving crumbs, but about wanting to empower people because it makes for a much better society and a better economy. While the Minister of State is at it, she might look at what they have sought for a long time. She has been at all the meetings and she is very committed. I refer to a cost of disability payment, which they have identified at a minimum of €20 or €25 per week.

We all received representations from those over 66. We told everybody over 70 years of age to "cocoon", a word I hated from the beginning. However, I played the game for a little while until such time as I felt nauseated with what we were doing and I asked for that to stop. In fairness to the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, he said he would, but the word persisted. We told people in a disingenuous way to stay at home when we had no authority to do that. For those who are working, the ESRI told us in May 2020 that there are only 65,000 people in that category who are over that age who are working. It is a specific sum completely excluded from everything. We talk about us all being in this together. We are clearly not. It is a tiny number of people. The Government might look at that because it has billions of euro put aside in reserve now.

What will we do to make it truly transformative so that we will be prepared to meet our climate change obligations and meet the future infections that will come because our hospital system could not meet it because we had run it down? Home help is something I mentioned yesterday. My time is limited so I will not go into it now.

On mental health, the Minister should set up the independent review panel to review the implementation of the new policy. Take it out of the Government's hands and out of our hands.

On domestic violence, how can we talk about equality or €18 billion, and still not have enough basic refuges for women and children to go to? The figures are startling. Ireland is obliged to have 472 places and we have 141. Can the Minister of State imagine that I am asking for more refuges because we have not even begun to deal with how women and children are suffering from domestic violence at a cost of €2.5 billion to the economy every year? Imagine that waste. According to a conservative estimate, €2.5 billion is going to waste every year. The same applies to mental health, in terms of cost to the economy. I asked myself what was needed to change this. Certainly, much more consultation on the ground is needed. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will be aware of that. I do not mean to highlight one Minister as opposed to another. It is only that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is from east Galway and I have seen her at many meetings.

I heard the Minister say there is extra funding going to local authorities, which I welcome. I welcome the extension of the waiver, but what is not clear is whether that funding will enable the local authorities to continue providing services. Will I be raising Topical Issue matters, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, on public swimming pools? Those in Ballinasloe and Tuam are in trouble.

Will this extra money ensure there will be a baseline of services below which we will not go? That might be a bad choice of words when talking about water but we are beginning to drown rather than saying there has to be a baseline for a civilised society. We must have swimming pools. I absolutely support the package for businesses and so on but the irony is that we are supporting private pools but no one can tell me if we can open the public pools.

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