Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate on budget 2023. I will try to be as constructive as possible and to recognise those few positives that have been announced and the long-sought supports that have been introduced. However, I will also highlight some of the areas in which lost opportunities have clearly emerged. For example, much has been made of the fact that the budget provides for €600 in electricity credits to be applied to all bills in three instalments but the policy direction of Ireland's energy development remains essentially unchanged. That is the root cause of many of the issues consumers face with regard to prices. The Government remains committed to pursuing a precarious and unstable source of power in the form of renewables. It has signalled no clear switch to the funding of liquefied natural gas, LNG, or gas and oil exploration. All of this means that, through its own inaction, Government has prolonged the energy crisis for households and businesses and made it even more certain that more electricity credits will have to be delivered in the future along with supports for those businesses that cannot survive in such a hostile pricing climate. Without a fundamental shift in our energy policy, I wonder if all Government has done is delay the inevitable collapse of the SME sector. SMEs will, at some point or other, be simply unable to cope with the level of bills that need to be paid even in the context of the additional supports announced today.

I welcome the extension of eligibility for fuel allowance. Fuel poverty is real and should shame us as a so-called First World developed nation. Why has there again been no shift with regard to our approach to peat or reclaiming bogs as indigenous sources of fuel and energy for our power plants that were shuttered by a short-sighted and rigid approach which I completely opposed at the very beginning, as I continue to do?

The Minister of State's Government is making a lot of noise about this multibillion cost-of-living budget but where did those costs come from? Many of them were there years before the war in Ukraine and the unfolding energy crisis. The cost of childcare in this State has been on the political agenda for a decade or so now. For at least the last six years, families and working parents have been telling successive governments that they cannot afford the excessive fees being asked of them. Early years childcare providers have also been seeking additional core funding for years and, even when this was announced in recent weeks, many providers identified major systematic issues with it and sought to have the entire core funding model re-evaluated.

I welcome the announcement with respect to the children's allowance payment and the increases in social welfare payments. They fall far short of what my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group and I proposed. The increases announced today will not keep pace with inflationary pressures and will, at most, simply allow families to tread water as costs rise around them.

As we know from the analysis of the Parliamentary Budget Office, the tax strategy group paper on social protection outlined potential options for welfare rate changes in budget 2023. A €15 increase in core social welfare payments that are currently set at €208, such as jobseeker's allowance, jobseeker's benefit, one-parent family benefit and illness benefit, equates to a 7.2% increase. However, given actual inflation rates, a €15 increase would not cover 2022 inflation, resulting in a fall in the real value of the core social welfare rates. A €15 increase in the contributory State pension, which is currently set at €253.50, equates to a 5.9% increase, which falls considerably short of the likely overall inflation rate for 2022. Government has chosen to limit the increase to €12, meaning that it will be eaten up. Several months ago, I called for the retention of children's allowance for all post-primary school pupils who have turned 18 while in full-time education. That would have been of direct benefit and direct help to these families who continue to struggle day in, day out.

With regard to carers, I welcome the once-off payment that was announced but Family Carers Ireland has said that the issue of the means test remains a major source of concern. As the group pointed out, there is also no long-term vision for the carers who save this State €20 billion every year. That is very concerning. All the Government has given them is short-term measures such as the once-off payment, which is a very short-term thing. Carers deserved a lot more support. There are approximately 500,000 carers in this State who, as I have said, save it €20 billion a year. It is disappointing to see that again their needs are not being fully met and that there is no long-term vision.

The major expansion of the GP visit card scheme will bring in 430,000 extra patients but how will GPs cope? We have a chronic shortage of GPs. In Laois and Offaly, GPs cannot take on new patients. Where are the GPs to come from? I would like to know. All of these fanciful notions are misleading people. The Government needs to be honest with people about this. There is also increased spending for oral health but where are the dentists? There is a chronic shortage and an issue with medical card holders not getting access to dentists. Where are these dentists to come out of? I have raised these issues a number of times. The Government is not being straight with the public on these issues. It is trying to do something that cannot be done. In some cases, the proposals are just fanciful notions. I would like to see how the Government intends to increase the number of GPs to fulfil its promise.

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