Dáil debates

Wednesday, 13 October 2021

Financial Resolutions 2021 - Financial Resolution No. 2: General (Resumed)

 

7:20 pm

Photo of Richard O'DonoghueRichard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

What has this budget done for working-class people? Nothing; it costs them more. The Government has promised to raise the minimum wage, which is fine. However, it has taken it away from them three and four-fold in other ways. Earlier today, I mentioned the fuel costs and where the money goes. The Government gets 19% of that into its purse to do it. There are customs charges and VAT, all Government funding which it has.

The Government has referred to all the houses being built here and there. Has it told the people that it has capped the number of houses that can be built in smaller towns and villages? Where is the cap on the cities? The Government has not told them that. Under the local area plans and the national development plan, the Government has stopped houses being built in the towns and villages in County Limerick. There is a cap on the houses in Croom where only X number of houses may be built over the next five years. The same applies to Ballingarry, Askeaton and Hospital. Every one of those is capped, but why has the Government not said that? It is because it is trying to close down the towns and villages in rural areas because it wants everyone to move into a city base where it thinks it can control it.

I am from rural Ireland. I am from County Limerick and on my watch the Government will not get away with it. It needs to lift the caps under the local area plan. A fellow Limerick man, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, is present. It is his job to represent County Limerick. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, was here two minutes ago, but he ran out of here. It is his job to represent County Limerick. They are not here to represent Dublin. They are here to represent the county that elected them. They will be going back to the electorate and telling them they want to be re-elected for County Limerick. For God's sake, will they wake up and look after the county that elects them? The Government should put the infrastructure into place. It is a sad state of affairs that I had to come to Dublin, the first independent ever to be elected in County Limerick, to make the Government do the job because it has the purse.

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