Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I better not waste any of my time. I am delighted to be able to speak on the budget. First, I want to do is recognise the fact that the Regional Group produced our budget submission and met with the Ministers, Deputies McGrath and Donohoe, prior to the Budget Statement. They listened and have taken on board some of the issues we raised. I want to acknowledge that because if every issue raised by everybody was included in the budget we would be here six days of the week to read it given that there are a lot of asks.

In particular, I am delighted that the help to buy scheme has been extended to 2022. That was a cause of concern for a lot of people who had money sanctioned, but were not in a position to draw it down due to the fact they could not get a builder on site or their planning permission was delayed. I thank the Ministers for that.

I will not hog all of the issues, but another issue addressed in the budget was remote working. Given that my constituency is rural and has the potential for remote working, it is important that we produce some incentives for people who are working remotely. The fact that there are tax measures in the budget to do that this year is to be welcomed. It is important that we take advantage of that, in particular in rural constituencies where we can bring new life into our parishes by having people working from home and relocating from more pressurised areas, and dealing with that in a way that makes things very efficient.

There are a number of other areas I would like to discuss. As a member of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters, and given that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is present, I want to welcome the social protection measures that will be introduced to increase the capital disregard for carer's allowance from €20,000 to €50,000. It is disappointing that the measure will not come into effect until June 2022, but it will come in in any event. The weekly disregard for the carer's allowance has been increased to €350 for a single person and €700 for a couple. It is important that the same happens with the domiciliary care allowance.

In respect of the disability allowance, the wage subsidy paid to employers who employ people with disabilities will increase from €5.30 to €6.30. That is something our committee asked for. The EmployAbility Service is very important for people with disabilities, as the Minister of State knows. It is important that we fund that disability service in such a way that it becomes effective and we get people who have disabilities, and can and want to work, back to work. We need to ensure the measures are not just a stopgap but involve long-term careers.

We can raise a number of issues regarding disabilities that are not right. I am a bit disappointed with the overall funding increase. I know the Minister of State worked hard on that, as did committee members. I am disappointed with the additional money that has been secured. There will be an increase, but we need to knuckle down as a committee and Department to make sure that we increase funding to the level the Government's own research has shown is needed. Some €350 million is needed to bridge all of the gaps.

There are a number of other issues in respect of the budget. The Minister happened to come in while I am talking about east Galway. He knows that we lost bus services in east Galway in Loughrea, Kilreekil and other areas. Bus Éireann services are being taken out of the equation. The problem people have is that they cannot now get to colleges. They have to travel because they cannot get places to live in Galway, Limerick or Athlone. Bus services are scrambling to provide capacity. We do not have a proper public transport service.

One young man got a place in college in Limerick and has to get his parents to drive him to Athenry so he can get a train to Limerick. He then gets a bus from there to his college. He then has to travel back. I understand he gets a bus from Athenry to Tuam and his parents pick him up. He does that every day of the week because he cannot get a place to live in Limerick. He has bought a car and applied for a driving test, but will have to wait 15 weeks for it. They are the challenges our young people are facing when trying to access education.

Our problem is that we are introducing a carbon tax and penalising people who have cars by charging them extra because they have petrol or diesel cars on the road. It is wrong that we are penalising people who have no other choice.

We all talk about climate action and a just transition and anything and everything about it, and they are all lovely words, but there is not one iota of a just transition when people are penalised for having no other choice but to have a car or maybe two cars at the house. I know many people who would love to be able to take public transport or to take the bus into Galway to work from the east of the county. They cannot do so because the service is not available or, when it is available, the bus lanes are not in place. We are putting the cart before the horse. It is important we revert and make sure that whatever we do we do in a just way. We do not want to penalise people for something that is not of their making or doing. While we talk about carbon tax, it is important we also put a just transition first and understand what that means.

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