Dáil debates

Tuesday, 12 October 2021

Financial Resolutions 2021 - Budget Statement 2022

 

6:45 pm

Photo of Michael Healy-RaeMichael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----with the hospitality sector. No, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, it is not Galway. Galway would be coming down along the ladder and the people there are also great. Our hospitality sector is reeling tonight at the fact that after having come out of the pandemic when they were shut for so long and went through so much, its representatives are now asking how they are going to manage next year when the VAT rate will go up. That shows a complete lack of understanding of what is happening on the ground.

With regard to education and the SUSI grants, I was inundated again over the past number of weeks by people asking what was going to happen and whether there would be a major overhaul of the SUSI grant system because of the fact that it has not been touched for so long. Instead, the Government has just tinkered with it. I welcome the additional funding for DEIS schools because that is a matter that I have been raising over a long period and I welcome any additional supports for them.

With regard to farming and our fishermen also, they have lobbied in an excellent fashion and I compliment every farmer and fisherman who took time off from trying to make a living to come here to Dublin and to attend meetings all around the country. They went to a great deal of effort to highlight their situations. They have received extremely little back in this budget because many of the measures that we were looking for in the Rural Independent Group were not delivered upon because there seems to be a complete disconnect between the heart of Government and agriculture and fishing. The fishermen have been sold out and the Government seems to forget that we are still a proud farming nation. While we are grateful for every other industry, for tourism and for everything that we have, we must remember that at the backbone of Ireland is agriculture. Was that recognised in this budget? No, because since the last proper REP scheme went out the window. Nothing has replaced it and this is only tinkering again with the system.

I welcome the gambling regulatory authority, which is an issue I have been raising a great deal.

I raised the issue of horticulture when the peat industry had been shut down. What did this achieve only to show that the Government completely forgot about it because nobody in government realised what was going to happen when we needed peat and that we would then not have that excellent resource. What is the Government doing only importing it from Latvia at a rate of 4,000 tonnes a number of weeks ago. This will happen twice a month over the next number of months, otherwise, the 17,000 jobs in this sector will be in danger. This seems completely crazy to think that we are allowing this to happen. The Government shuts down the peat industry without having any sensible alternative or having thought it through. If the Green Party was serious about its business or if it was operating on the real planet it would realise that in pushing for the closure of our peat industry, all this would do was to create more harm than if the industry had been left open.

We have many working hubs in Kerry such as in Kilmurry, Kenmare, Sneem and in other parts of the county. These hubs are vitally important because we want to encourage people to live in these rural areas where housing might be more affordable, whether that is renting or buying, and where hubs would be made available to them. Was there recognition given in this budget to that and to trying to promote, enhance and grow it? No, but I welcome the small allowance that is there for people working from home but we have to do everything to promote those hubs. We have many more of them throughout County Kerry and I want to see them grow, being used and being viable.

Returning to education for one moment, I forgot to say something which was very important. This year we had a crisis in places like Limerick, Galway, Cork and all throughout the country with regard to accommodation for students. Parents and students themselves were in an awful way in trying to get affordable accommodation on time. This is a matter that has to be tackled. There is nothing to enhance or help that sector grow more than improving accommodation and having it there for people in the coming years, as this has become a big problem. I welcome the reduction in class sizes because this, again, is a vitally important issue. The additional 350 teachers that will be provided is a welcome step in the right direction for children to be educated properly and for teachers to have a proper working environment. If retirements, illnesses and different are taken into account, we are probably only standing still, in the same way as the Minister has done with the gardaí.

The Government is trying to confuse the nation by saying that it is taking on all these additional gardaí but it is saying nothing about the gardaí that are retiring, or who, unfortunately, are sick. It is, of course, saying absolutely nothing about the outrageous decision that was taken by a certain individual to suspend highly respectable gardaí in County Limerick and putting them at home. This is something that should not have happened in the first instance but that is a different story for another day.

I also welcome in a very special way the 50% reduction in travel costs to students and younger people. That is a step in the right direction because when Charlie Haughey brought in free travel for older people, it certainly proved to be a great success. I could not see why, following on from that initiative, it could not be tried at the other end of the age spectrum.

I believe I still have another minute; I am down to-----

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