Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Finance Bill. There are some very good directional changes in this budget, first towards the idea of making it more beneficial to work than not to work, that is, to make work pay. It is important that the universal social charge has been adjusted to try to create that difference between not working and working in order that people will feel they can go to work and will not be penalised by having to pay for home services and childcare while at work, then doing the analysis and finding they would be better off at home. We have to make that gap wider. We cannot do so by increasing wages all the time because that creates the inflationary pressures on our economy. The only way we can do it is the way the Minister has started to do it, which is to increase the thresholds in order that people can earn more money before they come into the tax net, so I welcome that as a start.

I also welcome the fact that the Minister has taken on board what we in the Regional Group have always advocated in respect of tax incentives for remote working. I welcome that he is bringing in measures that will provide tax credits for people who are working from home in order to allow a 30% relief in respect of some electricity costs and bills for other consumables.

Contrary to what my colleague, Deputy Boyd Barrett, would say, I welcome that the help-to-buy scheme has been left in place. Deputy Boyd Barrett and I disagree on that. It should be left in place because there is nothing else at the moment. We need to make sure that we incentivise those young people who are first-time buyers of houses, who are building their own homes and who do not want to rely on the State to provide a house for them. We have the courage to do that. Be it a self-build house, a new purchased house or a second-hand house, it is important that we provide the same level of support. On second-hand houses, reference has been made to all of the houses in the State that are vacant. In addition, there are derelict sites. I put it to the Minister that there is potential there. I understand that plans are afoot to bring in incentives for people who want to buy houses in towns and villages in order to do them up and make them inhabitable environments in which to bring up their families. This would make a big difference to our towns and villages. It would also make sure that we are building homes without creating a huge amount of carbon emissions since we would be using existing buildings that are already there and just retrofitting them out. It makes total sense. I am aware that plans are afoot to put something in place. My plea to the Minister is to do this as a matter of urgency. It could be a game changer for rural Ireland and even for the city of Dublin, where we have vacant properties and vacant spaces with which nothing is being done. It is very important that we do this.

I am a bit confused about the land zoning and the taxing of land that is not being used for the building of houses. When county development plans and local area plans are being prepared, there is an issue whereby local authorities zone land that is not available for building on and that, for whatever reason, will never be available for building on. They do this because they look at a town and look at the land that is more centred to the town. They do it as part of a desktop study. I have many experiences of land that was zoned for residential purposes, to which sewerage and water infrastructure can be connected with no issue, but it is not available for many reasons, one of which is that the ownership of the land may be in doubt or there could be legal issues with it. The second reason it may not be available is that the person who owns the land may not be in a position to sell it because he or she is farming it and may want to keep doing so or hand it down to the family. I do not see how we can tax people who are using land. There is also the fact that decisions are being made by people in local authorities to the effect that such land is to be zoned. This is done without any interaction with the landowners. It is important that we differentiate between the speculators who buy land, get it zoned and sell it on and those people who own their land and who never asked for it to be zoned because they use it for other purposes. It is important that we manage this properly. If we are to zone land under any local area plan or in any town, we should carry out due diligence in order to ensure that the land is available and that there is no hindrance to it becoming available over the lifetime of the plan. Then we would not need to apply a tax to land that has been zoned. I feel pretty strongly about that.

I shall now turn to the matter of carbon tax. We have discussed this previously. Carbon tax can be unequal. It is unequal in the sense that we impose it on people who have cars but who have no access to public transport. We are levying carbon tax on people who have tractors at a time when there are no electric tractors available for purchase. We must make sure that a carbon tax is levied in a fair manner. Everybody talks about the just transition but there is no just transition when a bus stop is taken out of Loughrea and there is no bus service on offer. What must a person do? He or she must use the car to get to the hospital for an appointment, go shopping and do all of the things that must be done. People cannot walk to their destinations because the roads are too narrow and dangerous. They need to use their cars. A car is a vital component of living in rural Ireland. Until we get our ducks in a row and until we get the public transport in place - by which I mean a proper and comprehensive public transport system - we cannot tax people for the privilege of using cars in their daily lives.

It is important that we consider all of these things in the context of where we are at the moment. We have a great opportunity. This Bill is very important in the overall context of moving from where we are at now to a place where we can be great again, but we cannot leave people behind. I would encourage that the national development plan be brought forward and that it not just be a plan on paper. We need an implementation body for the national development plan in order to make sure that target dates are set for things to be done and that there is accountability, rather than just having a plan over ten years, which we will keep talking about for six or seven years, while not measuring its impact year on year to see what we are spending or if we are spending on the right things.

I am a member of the committee that looks at the music and entertainment industries. I am aware that the live music industry, including those who play at weddings and musicians who play in pubs at the weekends, have had their livelihoods decimated over the past two years. They are beginning to see a point at which they will be coming back, and hopefully we will be able to enjoy the music they create for us in our local areas. They have an ask. I appreciate that the Minister referred to EU rules but if there is any way at all that the VAT rate could be reduced to 9% for that particular cohort as has been done with the hospitality sector, it would be a very noble thing to do at this time. They have suffered a lot. I am aware that the Minister knows and appreciates this. If there is any way at all that the Minister could make that happen, it would be good.

Overall, I believe that the Bill and the budget represent a move in the right direction. There are many positives to the Bill but we must also be careful that we do not leave people behind when we all get caught up in the climate action debate, which has been the topic of the day every day over the past week in light of the fact that COP26 is taking place in Glasgow. I refer, in particular, to the farming community and what its members are facing. In the context of carbon taxation and in the CAP negotiations, I hope we do not make farmers the whipping boys for our climate action. That is very important. We have seen the KPMG report on the economic impact assessment of carbon targets for agriculture. When one looks at the different scenarios put forward, there is none that would offer farmers a lot of hope unless this Government ensures, in line with the commitment in the programme for Government, that investment additional to what will come from CAP is put in. More about that another time.

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