Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to this Bill, which the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has indicated covers a range of financial measures. We must acknowledge, as other speakers have done, the pandemic supports that were introduced. I sit on the enterprise committee and we certainly asked the Government for quite a while for a number of different supports. Although we did not get it right from the start, at a later stage in particular the CRSS and the EWSS were of great help to employers. They certainly allowed businesses to keep employees on hand and in the case of hospitality it allowed them to generate outdoor seating and all that. It was a great help in summer to allow these businesses to get up and going and give them some very much-needed revenue. The EWSS is being wound down now but we must be somewhat careful in how we do that. I know we will not have a cliff edge and it runs until April but there may be businesses that continue to be affected and which find that the return to profitability is taking much longer than they would have thought.

The question of debt warehousing has been discussed tonight. It is a very important measure to allow businesses to park debt at a very difficult time when they face payments to the Revenue Commissioners. In April this year, there is debt falling due. I am glad to see that in cases in which it cannot be paid, the Government is extending the zero interest rate out to 2023, and from then a 3% interest rate will apply. That is as it should be because it will be very hard for many businesses to really get back and thriving. They must have low and flexible levels of interest repayments for the debt. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, said in his opening remarks that the basis in offering these schemes was the prudent financial management of previous years. I agree with that statement. As I said, as we go to unwind these supports now, we must be mindful of how that will have an impact.

The Bill also covers the final payment of €1,000 tax-free to front-line workers and nursing staff. Will the Minister confirm in his closing speech that this will be extended to section 38 and 39 healthcare workers and those working in the disability sector? They have done sterling work offering respite and home supports and they must be recognised. It is important that this happens along with the recognition of those who work in the nursing home sector.

In the media I also see mention of a scheme to offer compensation to those health workers and families who tragically lost their lives during Covid-19 and I also welcome that scheme. The number is approximately 23 in this country and every one of those is a tragic case because each person was coming to the aid of somebody else, using all of his or her training and expertise, without realising that he or she would ultimately become a victim of Covid-19. We certainly send sincere condolences to families that are affected in such a way. I know one family quite well who lost a healthcare worker in the family during the pandemic.

The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, mentioned that the economy is just beginning to open. We see that as we try to throw off the shackles of Covid-19, although we know the virus has not gone away. We have seen in the past week how there appears to be a new type of the Omicron variant going around, and having had one variant does not make a person immune to another. We must continue to practice a reasonable degree of all the flexibility we had before we started wearing masks. In particular, we must try to observe sanitisation practices and be very mindful that it is the older cohorts and those with underlying illnesses who are most at risk here.

We are now facing into what is probably another perfect storm in the form of the war in Ukraine that Russian President Putin has decided to unleash. We are well aware of the terrible tragedy this is delivering on the Ukrainian people and our hearts absolutely go out to them. We must do everything possible in this country to try to offer our support to them, and we are doing that. As I said in the House recently, I welcome the action of the Government and the heroes within the Irish people who are trying to campaign and gather goods; some are travelling to Poland and even into Ukraine to try to offer their support.

This will see significant headwinds affect our economy. There will be a vote tonight on fuel increases or rebates on fuel. That is welcome but will it be enough? My sense is that it will not be enough and I hope we will be back to discuss it soon again. For agriculture and the heavy goods industry, the current level of fuel prices is untenable for continued operations.

I know the Irish Red Cross is leading the process for pledging of accommodation for Ukrainians coming to Ireland. It is very welcome and I know we have seen a very significant donation of pledges, with over 70,000 such pledges in recent days of different levels of accommodation and support. We certainly need a fast-track system, which we will have, with personal public service numbers to be issued quickly to people arriving here so they can avail of public service payments and accommodation where required. This will also allow for schooling for children.

It is impossible to overstate the crisis that will come our way if the war in Ukraine extends to a food crisis. We have a particular issue, which I mentioned in the House last week, because Russia and Ukraine account for nearly 30% of world grain supplies. In this country, we produce very little grain that can be used to make flour and we have only one flour milling company in the country. Approximately 20% of its turnover is based on its own manufacturing and the company buys in the rest of the flour. That is for baking bread.

We can do flour all right for biscuits but not for bread. We are going to see a significant uptick in the cost of bread in the shops. This is going to impact vulnerable households very quickly. The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, met with farm leaders yesterday. There is also the issue of tillage and fodder. There was talk of a tillage order but I am afraid that is not going to work out for a whole range of reasons, not least that a number of EU directives would have to be bypassed to allow a tillage order to take place. We also face a significant headwind in fertiliser costs. I was just looking at them before I came into the House. Calcium ammonia nitrate was €390 per tonne about four months ago and is €1,200 at a spot rate today, and can go to €1,400 per tonne. It is the same with urea and ammonia, which was €600 a tonne and is now €1,000 a tonne and heading higher again on a spot rate. A large Norwegian fertiliser manufacturer has signalled that it is reducing its operations because they are not sustainable with the price of natural gas. Vladimir Putin has set up the EU community from quite a long way back. He has allowed us to become totally dependent on his gas and oil. Even in our climate policy we unwittingly agreed to go forward with that construct. We are going to have to look at it now very significantly.

The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, said that employment is now close to 2.5 million in the economy but I think we can expect a significant headwind to that number also, certainly in terms of the economic stability of a lot of businesses. A new energy policy is going to be needed. As I said in the House recently, I am concerned that we are going to turn around in May and add further carbon prices on to fossil fuels, thereby adding to the inflation already in the economy. We see what America is now doing with liquified natural gas, upping its capacity while we have turned our back on it. We seem to be putting all our hopes in renewable energy, in solar farms which we have not yet developed. We are talking about onshore and offshore wind. Anybody who has studied the wind problem will realise that we are at least ten years away from being able to offer any type of offshore wind solution in Ireland. That means we are basically hoping two conglomerates from abroad will come in here and we will likely still be paying a very high price for energy even if it is created on and off our shores.

We have a significant problem in housing which needs to be addressed in light of where we are going with Ukraine. Have we looked at the idea of creating a housing bond, almost like a war bond, in this country? We are told we have a lot of money sitting on deposit. Can it be put to use? I know a number of builders who are availing of builder finance from larger builders simply because they cannot get builder finance from the pillar banks. They are paying up to 10% per annum APR on builder finance, which is making it unsustainable for them to go out building, never mind where the costs in materials and supplies are going. We have a major emergency and we have to do more than we are doing at present.

Ireland is facing some particular difficulties. We must hope that they will be short-lived, that the Ukraine crisis can be resolved through diplomacy and that we can get back onto the footing we were on, trying to build for the future, recover from Covid and build sustainability into our economy. Certainly there are opportunities but there are threats. It is most important that the Government would engage with all Deputies in the House. I am not sure if this was done during the Covid crisis; in fact, I can tell the Minister it was not. There is significant expertise among other Members of the House and the contacts they have. It behoves our Government now given where we are to start talking to all Deputies about advancing future Government policy.

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