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

I welcome the opportunity to speak. It is welcome that the thresholds for the carer's allowance have been lifted a bit. My honest opinion is that anybody who gives up a job to mind someone belonging to them as a carer should not be means tested because the service such a person does for the State is unbelievable.

I also welcome the move on childcare. The devil will be in the detail and we will see who will get what. I also welcome the stamp duty relief for young farmers but we are still at the stage where a young farmer to the Department of Finance is 35 while a young farmer to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is 39. Someone would have to be a fair operator to be two different types of farmer to those different Departments.

The Government needs to rectify that. I know there is extra money for retrofitting and all of that. That is welcome but the reality is that the money available to give to people in Roscommon who are retrofitting their houses and so on ran out three months ago.

Today's budget abandoned the agriculture sector. It has wiped it off the face of the earth. It does not seem to exist in today's budget. I will go through the figures. The increase in the carbon tax on agricultural diesel, which is used on farms around the country, will bring in approximately €9.1 million. The change in VAT will make a difference of approximately €8.2 million. That is €17 million. It was said that the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine's budget is to be increased by €30 million but, in the context of a total budget of €1.85 billion, that is inconsequential. It is actually worrying. I do not know if Deputy McConalogue was below in the hills of Donegal when the Ministers were preparing the budget but, by God, the agriculture sector has been left behind. It has been left behind at a time when all the talk in here is about climate. It must be remembered that the only people who can help in sequestration and who are willing to put their shoulder to the wheel are those in the agriculture sector. They have been left behind today.

For the life of me, I cannot understand some of the announcements today. As Deputy Harkin pointed out, bus fares are to be reduced by 50% for young people but we are not even able to bring kids to school in rural Ireland. We are leaving more and more children behind every year because they do not have concessionary tickets. Let us do the simple things right first. Let us put the money into that and give every schoolchild a bus to school from the stop up or down the road rather than having mammy bringing him or her in her SUV. That might be a better way to tackle climate action than this headline-grabbing 50% fare reduction. It is hard to get 50% off a bus ticket when there is no bus in the area. People have to thumb lifts instead. These are the things to be looked at with common sense.

I looked at the figures for people on low incomes, for example, €20,000. Such people are approximately €2 a week better off as a result of the €100 tax credit. Those on higher wages, for example, €40,000, who also need to get more, are approximately €8 a week better off. When adding up all the bits for a person on €20,000 or €21,000, you have to remember that people start paying PRSI from €18,000. People on €21,000 will pay PRSI on their whole income. It is like a tax of 23% or 24%. When you add up all the figures, such people are better off by approximately €4 a week. A pensioner or someone on social welfare will get €5, which they need, and they will also get the fuel allowance, an extra €2.70. That is €7.70. That is needed. However, how do we expect to draw people back to work?

If I were unemployed this minute, I would get a medical card. People should get medical cards; no one is disputing that. However, if I work and get €203, which is the same as I would get on the dole, I will not get a medical card. Even if I were to earn €170, I would not get a medical card. Are the lunatics running the asylum? Did they draw this up? Are we trying to tell people not to work? That is the message being sent day in, day out. We talk about a shortage of labour across the country. Small businesses are crying out. The issue of the minimum wage will be thrown at us. I have done that up and it is something like €11.70. When the tax is paid, it works out that the person on €20,000 is the worst off of the lot.

In case the Government did not know, over the last year, people who live in rural areas and who have to use a car to go to work, buy a drop of oil to keep the house heated and pay the electricity to keep the lights on are down €1,200. That is the figure now but energy prices are going to increase further.

We talk about bringing people back to work. These figures are not exaggeration. I got a person who has a degree in accountancy to do them up to make sure they were right. That was the figure for the person on €20,000 because the PRSI kicks in at €18,000 and increases from there. It is paid from bottom to top. No one has brought in a common-sense measure like a stair to make sure people are not screwed. These people are paying something like 23.5%. If we want to get people back to work, we need to make sure we have people who think things out. The genius who came up with the figure for what people will pay for home heating oil based it on a 900 l tank. I have never seen a tank of that size in my life. It is always a 1,000 l tank. That just shows how removed the people who write many of these documents are.

Why have we abandoned agriculture? I would love to know. When this country had to borrow a lot of money, when we were in trouble, when there was no cement on the boots and when people were taking the boat, the farming sector stood up to the mark. These are the same people who we are going to ask to put a few trees here and there and to do X, Y and Z to help Ireland Inc. Today, we treated them like they had disappeared. They do not even exist in the document. I read through the document and even read this new fancy handbook that has come out and could not see agriculture mentioned at all. Everything else was mentioned but agriculture was not. I smiled to myself today. Deputy Donohoe talked about the world being on fire. He must have meant a different world from mine because after this budget and with soaring energy prices all I am fearful of this winter is the poor devils who live in the rural areas of this country not burning, but perishing to death in their houses.

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