Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is the Finance Bill which followed on from the budget. We will recall the budget announcement when we heard one Government spokesman person after another cry out that this was the largest budget in the history of the State. We were all deafened by the assertions of that statement and yet it is ironic that that statement has been met by the numbers of people who have told us in the days and weeks since that the only thing the budget did for them was to make them poorer. It was a completely missed opportunity on so many fronts, particularly for those from rural communities.

The Government did not just decide that in the middle of a pandemic that it would move forward with the very tokenistic and regressive measure of increasing the carbon taxes. It actually went so far as to state in legislation that it was going to increase the carbon tax every year until 2030. We have never seen before such arrogance from a failed position. The Government did not introduce legislation to say that old age pensioners, for example, would secure increases for every year until 2030, or that pharmacy payments would increase in line with the cost of living up until 2030. The only measure that the Government categorically committed both itself and future governments to was an increase in a policy and a taxation that does not work. The reason that it does not work for people in my constituency is that this is an unavoidable tax, despite the assertions by others. If people need their cars to get to work in my community they have no alternative whatsoever. They have to drive their cars. Essentially, the carbon tax increase is a tax on people for trying to do their best and to make a life for their family. There was very little of significance in the budget for rural communities or the farming community.

The major announcement was a new Covid-19 so-called support scheme of €40 million for farmers. That has since been revealed as being simply an extension of the beef scheme. There is nothing new in it. Sinn Féin had rightly advocated that all Pillar 2 schemes, including environmental schemes, should continue through the transition period but we do not wish to laud or seek plaudits for simply asking to continue some schemes that take a little bit of the burden off our spending. This Government has been very willing and able to regurgitate previous failed policies on countless occasions.

The Minister here is a Fianna Fáil representative. Prior to the election, Fianna Fáil committed to an additional €45 million for our suckler farmers. Where is it? I asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he has managed to find that because it is not in the budget and it is not in this Finance Bill. Sinn Féin had advocated a new dispensation for our farmers recognising that they are the heartbeat of our rural communities and local economies. We had proposed a funding stream to ensure that we could deliver a suckler payment scheme of up to €300 per cow. We saw what the Government offered our suckler farmers in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when we were here discussing such issues as the closure of marts and the 30-month and four-movement rules with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We saw a Minister who was completely out of touch.

Since the budget we have returned to level 5 restrictions and we have seen families, communities and businesses under increased stress. What we have not seen are increased supports, which are badly needed, particularly for those in rural communities. Can the Minister evaluate the impact of the carbon tax? That has a big impact on the families and communities I represent. I ask him to re-evaluate that and to be a sane voice in government and to tell it that in the interests of the environment and of our communities, it needs to change tack.

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