Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for remaining in the House to listen to the debate on the Appropriation Bill. He has highlighted that the purpose of the Bill is to give statutory authority to the amounts voted by the Dáil during the year and provide for the definitive capital carry-over from 2021 to 2022. In aggregate, the Estimates amount to €73.1 billion. The comparable amount in the Appropriation Act 2020 was €69.7 billion. Therefore, we must appropriate this year €3.4 billion, or just under 5% of last year's net voted expenditure. As the Minister has outlined, this represents a substantial support to households, businesses and public services. Indeed, it continues to support many of these sectors.

The Minister has also outlined the exceptional and much-needed funding that has been provided in business supports to our key sector — the SME sector — and public services. I thank the Minister for the extension of the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, and employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, supports, which are critical as restrictions continue.

The second purpose of the Bill is to provide funding, on a legal basis, for expenditure into 2022 prior to voting on the 2022 Estimates. This money is needed, in effect, to keep the lights on in Ireland and our public services financed, including in respect of the regulated payments of social protection.

In the Minister's speech he mentioned the revised national development plan, which sets out capital allocations for the next decade amounting to €165 billion. He also mentioned that this funding is predicted to generate, in the construction sector alone, more than 80,000 direct and indirect jobs, which would be most welcome. I am not sure whether the Minister was in the House earlier today to hear a speaker predict in excess of 40,000 job losses in the SME sector in the coming year due to indebtedness and falling business margins. I am not aligning myself with those comments but contend there is significant pressure on the SME sector in Ireland at present, as the Minister knows. We have spoken in the House many times about many of the problems that arise, but the Minister will have to consider extending some supports to key business sectors that are affected.

Referring to the shiny stars listed within the national development plan, the Minister mentioned the upgrade of the M4 to Sligo, the runway project for Dublin Airport and the completion, on time and on budget, of the Cork runway. These are significant investments in aviation and transport. Could I highlight to the Minister the withdrawal of €350,000 in annual support for Waterford Airport pending planning approval for a runway extension? This airport is excluded from a recent aviation package of €126 million to support regional airports. It is hard to understand this thinking, particularly in light of the carry-over in the budget. Waterford airport is the home of Rescue 117. That airport and the activity in the region around it are needed to support that service.

There is no mention in the national development plan of the N25 or N24 road upgrades. They are not prioritised in the plan. The Dunkettle interchange is included, for sure, along with the proposed motorway development linking Cork and Limerick. There is nothing announced beyond an analysis of linking the south-east and mid-west transport corridors, which could do so much to activate economic activity across southern Ireland.

The Minister mentioned the carrying over of €800 million into next year. The campus of Waterford Institute of Technology has not seen a new building or capital investment in teaching space in more than 14 years.

The present commitment to build a new engineering building under a public private partnership, PPP, arrangement looks unlikely to proceed until probably 2023 or 2024 at the earliest.

I have raised in the House a number of times the issue of how capital is appropriated and directed in this country. I am cognisant that no capital budget has been announced for the proposed new technological university of the south east. It is the only third level sector driver in the south east and we are still waiting to hear of the breadth of Government ambition more than a year after the amalgamation process has begun.

I am also aware that a business case to fund 24 whole-time equivalents for the cardiology suite at University Hospital Waterford remains dormant and still has not been acted on, despite the Government's significant promises. I remind the Minister that University Hospital Waterford is one of nine model 4 hospitals in the country and has the lowest number of staff per bed in the country, over 700 fewer than its nearest peer, yet is about the third busiest hospital in the country.

The Government has not yet decided or indicated how it will support future wind development either. In recent days the Regional Group brought before the Dáil a maritime energy Bill, which the Government kindly accepted. In that debate, however, there was nothing to suggest when the Government will make a decision about funding of ports to enhance offshore opportunity, particularly at Rosslare Europort and the Port of Waterford, which lie on the east cost, where the next ten years of activity will happen. I question the ability of the system to treat regions equally and to try to develop individual regions on an equal and sustainable basis. The south east is in the programme for Government. Waterford is at the heart of driving the south-east region, yet we are still waiting for the capital commitments to show us that that endeavour is clear and accurate within the programme.

How will we challenge the climate crisis? We have certainly brought in and enhanced spending and initiated taxation, but where is the planning for sustainable and renewable energy? What we spend is important; how we spend it is even more important.

In the programme for Government the Government has highlighted that the housebuilding programme is a cornerstone of Government policy, yet I think the Minister is aware - if he is not, I am sure many of his Department officials are - of the increasing obstacles to construction in this country. I spoke recently to a large developer in Waterford who has stopped building houses for the coming year or 18 months simply because he cannot make any money out of it. We have to look at our regulation and taxes; otherwise, the housebuilding programme the Government envisages will not happen.

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