Dáil debates

Thursday, 14 October 2021

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

 

1:55 pm

Photo of Joe CareyJoe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This budget comes as we slowly emerge from a once-in-a-century pandemic. It is a positive, progressive budget which will underpin economic recovery and get people back to work. The solid economic foundations laid by former Minister, Michael Noonan, and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, in establishing the national reserve, or rainy day fund, have played a huge role in enabling us as a country to bounce back.

Who would have thought we would have needed this reserve so quickly? This reserve allowed us to introduce the most radical of financial supports for our workers, families and businesses throughout the country. It allowed us to steer a safe and secure path through the worst effects of the pandemic until a safe vaccine arrived.

One of my key priorities in this Dáil has been recovery of the aviation sector, which is not only essential but is vital to the recovery of the tourism sector for the entire mid-west and west. I very much welcome the €126 million aviation package and the €60 million of capital investment. We must ensure this package is invested in a fair and regionally balanced way, in line with the aims of the national planning framework that suggests that 75% of growth should take place outside the east. Therefore, in my view, allocation of these funds should be on the same basis. If the east has over one third of the population of the entire country, it should never again have 86% of passenger traffic travelling to and from Ireland.

I welcome the inclusion of Shannon Airport in the regional airports funding programme. This is a welcome measure and it will free up funding to assist Shannon in recovering the routes and frequencies that have been lost during the pandemic, especially the three times daily return route to Heathrow Airport and the transatlantic routes to New York and Boston. It is important that Shannon continues to be part of this funding programme into the future.

One of the victims of the pandemic in recent days has been Lufthansa Technik Shannon Limited. This company has been in Shannon for more than three decades and employs 480 people. A strategic review of its operations was completed this week, and the company is to be sold to the Shannon-based Enterprise Ireland company, Atlantic Aviation Group, which will be taking on 300 employees from Lufthansa. This is a welcome development in ways, but my thoughts are with the 180 people who are to lose their jobs. I have engaged with both companies' CEOs. I have spoken to the unions this week. I met with the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, and I impressed upon him the need to ensure the best possible redundancy package is made available to these people. I also impressed upon him to need for his Department and for Government agencies to provide retraining and upskilling opportunities. It is important that, throughout this process, workers and their representatives are engaged with in a positive way. I look forward to that happening when the 30-day consultation period will begin next week.

To return to the budget itself, I also strongly support the package designed for business and tourism, including the extension of the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, the extension of the 9% VAT rate and the extension of the rates waiver. I have consistently called for these measures, including here in this House in last week's debate. The reduction of the pupil-teacher ratio by one, together with the recruitment of nearly 1,000 additional teachers and more than 1,000 SNAs, are all welcome investments in our children's futures. The changes to the tax bands and tax credits will allow workers to keep more of their hard-earned cash. The €5 increase for the pensioners, jobseekers and other welfare recipients, together with the increase in the minimum wage to €10.50, are all welcome measures. I also strongly support the extension of the help to buy scheme and look forward to more people getting on the housing ladder with its assistance. I welcome the commitment in this budget to recruit an additional 800 extra gardaí to the force next year.

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