Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the budget. I was happy with some of the things in the budget and there are some things I was not as happy with. I cannot for the life of me understand why people would go on the rural schemes such as Tús from what I have read today. People on such schemes will receive an extra €5 but if people do not go on the scheme and stay at home they will get an extra €12. That absolutely would fly in the face of encouraging people to work. The Minister needs to address this rapidly. There is an amount of work that people do on those schemes in every one of our towns - not just in my county but in everyone's county - be it the rural social scheme, RSS, or the Tús schemes in helping with the tidy towns and for community projects. In fairness, the Minister did make adjustments during the year, which I acknowledge, but this increase flies in the face of encouraging people to go back and do a bit of work. I ask the Ministers of State to ask the Minister to look at that to try to reimburse those people properly.

While I understand that there is a mica problem and that money has to go into that, I do not believe we are at the hour or the minute where we should be putting 10% onto concrete and blocks. I suppose it is a Green Party idea. There is a simple reason and I was just tallying it up. On the average bungalow build costs down the country it will probably add about €1,200 of an expense. I am not against any of this stuff down the road but now is not the time when we are struggling to get houses for rent or for young people to live in. I believe this in another thing on which the Minister should kick the ball down the road a bit. This has been a budget of nearly €11 billion and this would bring in about €8 million. Surely to God it is like peanuts but it is going to hurt people most. In fairness, everyone in this Dáil is trying to get ideas to try to solve in the building issues. I ask the Ministers of State to ask the Minister to look at that.

Bringing the fuel allowance to €500 is welcome and is needed. A lot of people in a vulnerable situation will need that, or the doubling up of it for a couple. Indeed, a lot of the social welfare increases are needed because pensioners are afraid of their lives to put on a light. It is welcome that extra money is coming in that regard.

Unfortunately, when we get to agriculture in the budget it is a few short sentences and it does not seem to have the same grá. At one time when I came in here in 2014 there was a good long piece on agriculture, but now it seems to be getting less. I do not know if this is by design because the Green Party does not like agriculture. I welcome the 30,000 new participants that will be announced soon in the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES. I spoke to the Minister about this earlier and I suggest that there are things that need to change for the farmers and the cohort who own between 30 acres and 50 acres. We are going to keep the people who need the money most out of the system if we do not change some parts of that scheme. The Minister is well aware of my views on that and hopefully he will look at it.

I welcome the beef sector efficiency programme, BEEP-S. It is not in the documents today but I do welcome that some €26 million of €28 million is coming for it, along with what they called the new beef genomic scheme. It is a different name now but I call it by the old name. That is coming in as well and it is required.

Sheep farmers are struggling more this year. When considering the price of sheep last year and the price of sheep now, store lambs are actually less today. The costs have gone up, obviously, with fuel costs, energy costs and meal costs. I am not pre-empting something but I believe that the talk is that it is going from €10 to €12. They were looking for €20 to try to offset the costs for them. There is a €20 million budget for it but I cannot see any great thing in the budget for sheep farmers.

I welcome the new TAMS and the extra funding for it. I believe a lot of farmers will go for the solar panels but we need to know the detail. We are nearly talking in the dark. We are looking at a figure of €30 million besides TAMS, and then there is a word about solar panels but we do not know what percentage of that they will get. At least I welcome that the idea is coming forward.

There is also funding for anaerobic digestion. This is where money needs to be put through grant aid. Some say it will be through loans but I hope it is not loans. It needs to be put in through grant aid because there is a huge opening for anaerobic digestion right around this country in different areas. I hope the Ministers of State ask the Minister to look at that. The people who are between €25,000 or €26,000 and €35,000 or €36,000 are the people who most need it. I welcome the electricity vouchers but as Deputy Harkin said earlier they need a few injections of money before Christmas, to be honest about it. It would be better to have two of them before Christmas and hope for the best. One can always add on a bit in the second part of the year. I do believe that this is required.

I welcome the fees and so on for some of the publicans. They need a breather as well. I welcome the help with the electricity. I hope they do not over-complicate it.

You do not have to be a mathematician to know that electricity has gone up more than 50% in the past year. I looked at some of the commentary which said it was October to February, but these people need money and they need it rapidly. They need it in the next week or two because many small businesses are on life support at the moment. I welcome that there is a budget for it, but the money for it needs to be pushed out fairly quickly. I know that the budget is supposed to take effect from January but many of these businesses are like boats taking on water. They are in trouble and they need help. I will have more to say later but that is all I will say for the moment.

See this speech in context