Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I intended to start on a different subject than the one I am going to start on but changed my mind on listening to Deputy Leddin. In fairness, some people have to educate the people in the Green Party seeing as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are lying by the wayside allowing as much hurt to be inflicted on the ordinary people of rural Ireland as is possible. Carbon tax hurts only the people of rural areas. The Minister for Finance states in his document that carbon tax will encourage change. It is not encouraging change; it is inflicting massive hardship on the people of rural Ireland. Deputy Leddin said there is no alternative. I will tell him what we will do: we will stand outside the gates of Dáil Éireann for half an hour tomorrow morning and see in that time how many double-decker buses pass by. One after another will pass by and each will have only one or two passengers, or none. It is up in Dublin that we should start. The capacity should be cut down to 50%. There is no public transport service down where I live. The Acting Chairman, Deputy Joe Carey, knows Goleen as well as I do. He holidays there because he knows the beauty of the place. A bus leaves at 7.30 a.m. and it comes back around 8.30 p.m. That is the reality – the reality that those on the Government side do not understand and never will understand because their brains have a completely different mindset than those that see the reality of what we have to live with.

We depend on cars because we do not have a public transport service for young or elderly people or the ordinary people who get up in the morning to go to work. They cannot jump on a bus or stand at the side of their road and see one, two, three, four or five double-decker buses passing by in the space of six or seven minutes or less. The buses are tailing each other. It is outrageous. The Government is not attacking anyone in the urban areas of the country but it is attacking the hard-working people of rural Ireland and they know it. They know that is what Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are doing. We can forget about the Green Party because it has no intention of worrying about rural Ireland; it is worrying about the few urban votes it will get and the few seats it will gather. The Government needs to stand in Goleen tomorrow morning waiting for a bus so that it can figure out where to start with its carbon tax.

We have the highest electricity prices in the EU. In the name of God, where does the Government think people will get the money? In the context of climate change, the Minister said the world is burning. It certainly is, but it is the pockets of Irish people that will be burning when we have a Taoiseach who goes out and blows €225 million. The Government can only give €5 per week to elderly persons but the State will be giving €2.5 million per week in 2025. Where is all this money coming from? Is it confetti that the Government is making money out of? In the context of the budget and the chances the Government had to give something back to people in rural Ireland, it failed miserably. This House often discusses climate change. There are great politicians in the House who have wonderful ideas relating to climate change but the bottom line is that if we cannot bring Australia, Russia, China and India with us, then we are only wasting our time. What is being said this week in Aberdeen is that those countries could not care less and are talking about way out, in 30 years or 40 years. However, the Government is talking about today and trying to tell them how great Ireland is. Ireland is tiny; it is not even a dot in the ocean. If the changes do not come where they are needed, we are going nowhere. We can certainly make changes here too but that cannot be to the detriment and difficulty of the people of rural Ireland.

As regards farming, the Minister really missed the ball in the budget. In fairness, the suckler cow grant needed to be increased to €300. No grants were introduced. There was nothing for farming. It was a case of kicking the can down the road and worrying about farming next year. Farming is in crisis this year. Why did the Government fail to give some kind of compensation to the farmers who have been afflicted by so many difficulties and are facing what will be a cull in cattle, according to all the experts in the quangos that the Green Party in government is setting up? It is a case of the tail wagging the dog in this new Government. We have the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, and the Taoiseach out abroad saying things like the comments yesterday that we have to diversify and grow forestry. God almighty, it has not even been possible to cut forestry since the Green Party went into government. It is a scandal. There are people in my constituency who wanted to get into forestry but now would not touch it with a barge pole. It is an absolute waste of time as far as they are concerned. The Government is codding the people but it will not do so for long because the people are not fools.

I refer to public transport. The budget announcement included a 50% decrease in the cost of travel on public transport for young people, which I welcome, as all people should because we should be encouraging young people to use public transport where it is available. Although it might have been rectified by now, initially that was only going to apply for the people using the DART and trains in Dublin or the bigger cities such as Cork. The Government forgot about the people of rural Ireland who use public transport. Apparently the Minister is now scrambling to rectify that. I hope that has been factored into the Bill or will it be another case of a few million euro here and a few million euro there that the Government tends to find when it suits?

I did not hear anything in the budget in respect of the fishing industry. It has gone through the worst crisis ever, as such, under this Government but there is no compensation whatsoever on offer for the industry. I have serious concerns about that.

Where is the health budget? Where are the endoscopy unit and the physiotherapy unit that were promised to the people of Bantry General Hospital? Clonakilty Community Hospital has not been brought up to HIQA standards. There is no budget available there, so we are continuously under budget year after year. As regards the cross-border directive, will the funding continue? I refer to pay parity in the context of CoAction. Centres in west Cork are being closed as a result of that issue.

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