John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was a little frustrated when I realised I had only three and a half minutes to contribute to this debate, but I copped myself on and realised that if anyone outside the House were offered the same amount of time to speak on the Finance Bill in this Chamber, he or she would grasp it with both hands. I will use the time to focus narrowly on one area.

The Minister is aware of the work of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight, on which I am privileged to serve, and has been very generous with his time in engaging with it over the past two terms. He is also aware that one of the issues in respect of which we have sought, if not to impose action on him and his predecessor as Minister for Finance, then certainly to encourage engagement on, is the whole aspect of gender and equality budgeting. The aim is to ensure the terrible errors in budgetary planning that were made in the past and which had disproportionate effects and impacts on different cohorts of our society, such as women, for example, in the case of social protection cuts, would not be repeated and budget preparation would involve proofing any decisions for their gender and equality impact.

My contribution, brief as it is, is to make a plea for our younger people and emerging youth. I have raised this issue at the most recent meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight and I will continue to raise it over the next year. The former broadcaster, Mark Little, took part in a radio discussion recently in which he spoke about the need for future-proofing of budgets to ensure the decisions that are taken across every Department have an eye to the impact on emerging and future generations in this country. The idea is that the Minister for Finance, or any other Minister, would look at every budgetary and financial measure he or she is about to take and ask what impact it will have on an 18-year-old, a 25-year-old or even a 30-year-old. Is the price too high for them to pay at a future time?

The situation of that generation particularly focuses my mind. The emerging generation is made up of a group of people who were already coping with the impact and consequences of the financial crisis of a decade ago, which occurred when they were very young and through no fault of theirs. They are faced with the climate action that is being imposed, although many of them are way ahead of the actions that are required. Action to address climate change will necessitate sacrifices on their part because of the way we acted in our lifetime and the actions of generations that came before us, especially in the past 100 years. In addition, people in this generation have lived and grown up through the pandemic and, aside from those who died, they were the ones to have made the largest sacrifices throughout the Covid period.

I plead with the Minister to ensure future-proofing of budgets becomes an embedded part of the budgetary process across all Departments. In that regard, and although I appreciate the economic context we are in, I am sorry the rainy day fund, in which money is put aside for the future, was dispensed with this year on the basis it would burden the economy too significantly. Yet, we see corporation tax returns €1 billion ahead of target, with VAT receipts also ahead of what was forecast. We must keep an eye on the emerging generation and ensure we do not continue to burden young people into the future.

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