Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. I will start with farming because I always like reminding the House that Ireland is predominantly a farming and agriculture-based country. This Government, however, as well as successive governments in the past, seems to have forgotten that. It has forgotten farmers and fishermen. Every obstacle that could be put in their way has been put in their way. Farmers are extremely resilient. They have to fight against weather and the cartels involved in beef factories. They have to fight all the time just to survive and make a living.

Unfortunately, the Government does not do much to help them. Who are the additional carbon taxes that have recently been imposed going to affect adversely the most? It is the farming community and people living in rural Ireland. I refer to the price of diesel in petrol stations at the moment. I never thought I would live to see the day that the price of agri-diesel would go over €1 per litre. I never thought that would happen. There are exactly 4.56 l in a gallon. I never thought I would see the day that a gallon would cost more than €4. It is nearly heading to €5. It is an awful expense on farmers. It is an awful burden to try to take.

When farmers go to the mart, they being are hit with a cartel or monopoly type of situation with the factories. I and Deputy Mattie McGrath and others from around the country stood shoulder to shoulder outside meat factories - I stood outside the meat factories in Rathkeale and Bandon - trying to stand up for farmers and be there for them in their time of need. Unfortunately, we still have not won our way. When I say "our way", what we wanted was fair play and a fair price. All farmers want to do is cover their costs and make a modest profit so they can continue trading the next year. That is not happening, however.

In the context of business and life generally, in the past, governments were made up of people who, at home, were doing the ordinary things. They were farmers, shopkeepers, publicans or undertakers. They employed just a few people here and there. Now when I look across the Chamber at Ministers - obviously, I am not referring to the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, who is present, as I would never personalise anything - talking about job creation, I see people who never created a job or paid a man or woman on a Friday. I hear people over here talking about the working man but a lot of these fellas here talking about it never did a day's work in their lives. When I look across at the Ministers, I see people who do not know what it is to stick their hand in their pocket and have to pay somebody. They do not know the obligations of being an employer. They do not know the obligations and rights to which an employer has to adhere to employ people properly. That is why I say they are out of touch and do not know what they are talking about.

I refer to the situation for small grocers at the moment, for instance. I will again declare that I am a small shopkeeper. I am a small employer in a small village and have been so since I was 18 or 19 years of age. Believe me, it is a terribly difficult place to be when you are trying to balance a book, pay your tax, keep your nose clean and be open for the next year of trading. It is not easy. Deputies might ask whether I have anything good to say about the Government. Of course, if it was not for the incentives that were given to small businesses and the schemes that were in put in place, and if it was not for those mechanisms to help employers and their employees, whether in the catering sector, the hoteliers or the pubs that were shut for so long, an awful lot of the small businesses in County Kerry that I represent would be shut today.

Of course, that was a lifeline and I acknowledge and say thanks for it.

Now that those schemes are finishing, the hard reality of trying to make the business wash its face is going to be back on those employers again who desperately want to hold on to their loyal workers. We must remember that if it was not for the workers, there would be no business. It is very important that those employees and employers are protected to ensure that our small businesses in our rural areas, in particular, are kept vibrant. We must also consider the fishermen who have been sold out. At the end of the day these are the things that are so important. The farming, the small businesses, the people who create two and three jobs and the fishermen. All of these businesses are in a constant battle just to keep their heads above water.

One thing I want to touch on is the whole scheme around contractors. I declare an interest as I have been involved in that business all of my life. It is becoming very difficult because of the whole E-tendering system. When a big job comes to a county, this job goes to a big contractor. I have no problem with that if the big contractor will employ the smaller local contractors, which is great. We have a situation where no matter what size the job that comes up now is, one really has to be in the stratospheric league of things to be able to qualify. In other words, when tenders are being offered, if there is a contractor who is tax compliant whose nose is clean from a regulatory point of view - which of course it has to be - that person should be entitled to take their chances and tender for that scheme. Remember, in order to grow, to get bigger and to make what one does better, one has to start somewhere. When I think of contracting in Kerry I think of great people, the likes of Mike Jack Cronin of the MC Group. I think of where he started, from what I would call very humble beginnings, and grew into a great organisation. It is very difficult for a person to do that. There are certainly no incentives there for a person like that. It is nothing but the height of absolute hard work, determination and, of course, a good workforce that is needed. It is great to see small beginnings like that come up along in the world and indeed the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage was in Kerry to go to one of Mike Cronin’s sites recently.

The Taoiseach visited another great group of people in Tricel. That family, a husband and wife organisation in the Stack family, started out from very humble beginnings and did great things. I compliment the Stack family on what they have achieved, where they now have 500 employees. This was a husband and wife team which started in 1973 in the great town of Killarney. Now it is doing very significant work exporting its tanks and its renewable energy solutions around the world. It is a great achievement for a small family business to grow into that.

The opportunities for others to do that is very limited and I blame the E-tendering scheme in the way that it is structured. It is like the chicken and egg - where does one start? One cannot start big, one has to start small but if one starts small now the opportunity of getting bigger is very limited because of the whole tendering system.

Our tendering system has to be open, of course, to every type of scrutiny and transparency, which is what we want, but I want to see more people being given the opportunity of a bite of the cherry. I compliment, as I am doing in talking about these types of businesses, all of the people who are involved in that type of contracting. We are fortunate in Kerry and Cork at the moment that there are a number of large infrastructural projects that are under way and are in the pipeline. I warmly welcome those, including the greenway which has been finally given which I would call the legal green light. It will be a lifeline to Cahirsiveen and to the people of the Iveragh Peninsula because it was held up for a number of years. I believe it will be one of the finest walkways we will have in Europe. People will come from all around the world to travel, to walk on and to use that walkway when it will be opened.

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