Dáil debates

Wednesday, 28 September 2022

Financial Resolutions 2022 - Financial Resolution No. 6 – General (Resumed)

 

3:20 pm

Photo of Mattie McGrathMattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too, am pleased to be able to respond to some of the delightful speeches today from the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Transport, the leaders of the triumvirate of parties that make up this Government, and their wonderful budget. They are playing mind games with the people. Everyone knows that like the previous Government, for the last two years this Government has not been serving the people. It is serving some other global masters and is not working in the interests of the people here. We have come through the charade. Deputy Lowry said previously that he has been here for 40 budgets. I have been here for 15 or 16. I missed last year's because I was sick. It is a charade now. It is all out in the media. There was a press conference this morning. I do not know what the Ministers went to that for. Perhaps they wanted to see how the people are reacting to the crumbs they have got from the mighty table of the triumvirate that makes up the Government.

I welcome some measures. I welcome the removal of VAT from defibrillators and other medical devices. Measures like that and the bonus are welcome, but it is the taxpayers' money that the Government is regurgitating and recycling. It is giving them back crumbs. What has happened to our agricultural industry, which was the primary industry in this country and served us well from the foundation of our State, when T.K. Whitaker and others decided to be visionaries and to develop our industry? It beggars belief that agriculture is now second from the bottom in the funding received in this year's budget. The only smaller budget is that relating to the Department of the Taoiseach. He does not need a budget because he does not do anything as such. It is only for PR, media stuff and God knows what. Agriculture has been reduced to that position. The Greens are happy with that. The transport budget has also been cut. Agriculture was the primary industry that dragged us by the heels out of the last two recessions. Now, we are deep in crisis. Small beef, sheep and hill farmers will become extinct. They will be run off the land like their ancestors were run off the land by Cromwell all those years ago. They cannot survive and eke out a living where they are. It is unbelievable.

Is there any point in talking about health? It is a black monstrosity. Look at the development of the children's hospital. It is a monumental disaster. Now there will be a 10% increase in the price of the concrete being used to build the rest of it. The cost will not stop at €3 billion. One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The hospital is in the wrong place and location, and is not accessible. By the time the equipment is fitted, it will be well out of date because, as we know, all such equipment has a particular lifespan. It is an awful charade.

The national broadband plan is the same. It is another charade, like other Government projects. The incompetence is frightening.

The Green Party's fingerprints are all over this budget. Its fingerprints are on agriculture, and it is diminishing the sector. Its fingerprints are all over the budget. I could mention umpteen examples. I am surprised that the transport budget has been cut under the Minister for Transport. The Minister is one of the three individuals who lead the Government of this country. He allowed that to happen in his own Department in order to get his vanity projects, to cripple agriculture and continue with the carbon tax. He lost out where he should be watching for major infrastructural projects. That has happened. The carbon tax is criminal. There was a trick of the loop down in the convention centre and it was passed with incremental increases over ten years without there being a vote on it by the Dáil. The Government has had the audacity to impose that on hard-pressed taxpayers and people who have to travel to work and put fuel in every machine. They are buying generators now to keep the lights on. They will have to put fuel into those generators. That will add to their costs. The farm contractors did not even get a mention. The carbon tax is punitive. There are parties that are voting against the increase now, when they voted for the ten-year incremental increase. It is farcical really.

The tourism and hotel sector has received a blow from the Government. It is the sector that was so badly affected during Covid. I am not talking about hotels in Dublin. I heard someone today suggest that we should have a different tax rate for Dublin, like they have in New York. The extortionate prices that are being charged here must be cut. I am talking about the decent hoteliers all over Tipperary, from Carrick-on-Suir, to Clonmel, to the Cahir House Hotel, up to Cashel, and right up to north Tipperary in Roscrea, Templemore and Nenagh. They are wonderful, hardworking, dedicated entrepreneurs who employ many people. The hotels were unceremoniously closed during Covid. The bigger supermarkets were allowed to stay open but the hotels were punished. Now, they are being given the message that at the end of next February the VAT will be increased again. Tens of thousands of people are employed in what is a €10 million industry. It is a vital industry. People in agriculture and rural Ireland have turned to the tourism industry in a desperate effort to make their places better and more receptive, and also to put bread and butter on the table. What has the Government done to them? It has kicked them in the teeth.

We know about the housing crisis. The housing income thresholds in Tipperary have not been reviewed for over a decade. In fact, it is 11 years since they were reviewed. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage stood where the Minister for Transport is now and told us in November that they were under review. A few counties were reviewed, but Tipperary was not. That is causing anguish for ordinary working families. They are being punished.

The Government claims to represent those people. Those families are over the thresholds that are ridiculously low. They are over the threshold for the housing assistance payment, HAP, but are also over the wealth thresholds that would allow them to get a loan. They cannot get loans from the council. That is terrible.

The 10% tax on concrete will affect everyone trying to build houses for themselves, builders, road makers and anything else that goes on. Most major projects are stopping anyway because there is no confidence in this Government. It does not know which way it is going or which way things are turning out.

Under the assistance scheme, first-time buyers are unable to buy a second-hand house or an old house that needs to be done up and repaired. Where is the sense in that?

I know my following suggestion will not happen although it should. The biggest owners of vacant properties are the county councils around the country. They are also the biggest polluters in our watercourses. Will the councils be made to pay the vacant property tax? They will not, but they should be. It would give them an incentive not to have this carry-on whereby houses are left idle. That is an anomaly. The budget means medicine for the little people, na daoine beaga. The Government is allowing the public service to expand, be unaccountable and to have many properties in dereliction. People are trying to do up all those places. I honestly believe the Government has lost touch. It is tired. It has a lack of energy and spirit to carry on. It is sending out a lethargic message to the public.

The Government created the reserve fund yesterday by slipping it in. What it did was totally unorthodox and unprecedented. I am not totally opposed to the rainy day fund but I am opposed to putting in €2 billion this year and €4 billion next year when we should be putting that money into projects to help our rural communities. We do not get a bob. The Government has plenty of money for the Luas, the DART and all that up here in the capital. It is pathetic.

Government representatives held press conferences today to explain what people will get as a result of the budget. It is giving with one hand but is already taking away. As I said last night, St. Peter and St. Paul are saints but I do not know where the saints are with this Government. This is the island of saints and scholars. The Government has destroyed the spirit of the people. It has applied punitive taxes. It is giving out tax credits instead of taxing the big power companies and the wind energy companies. There should be a windfall tax on those companies.

The Government has two boxes from the EU which it will not use. It has refused to use them in many areas. It has refused to apply for funding. It has not applied for different schemes while other countries have shown the way. Portugal and many other countries have reduced the VAT rate to 5%, 6% or 7%, while this Government is doing exactly the opposite and putting it up.

The embarrassing charades of the past three years have shamelessly siphoned wealth in one direction, that is, towards the globalists and their servants, and drained the men and women of Ireland. I mean that. The Government has drained opportunities from the children of Ireland and their futures. We have an enormous, globally influential diaspora. We could put a stop to this story if the Government would serve and encourage the people and allow them to live and work, to be healthy and happy. We should do that. It is embarrassing that we are here now with an insatiable and drastic desire to serve our globalist masters and not the public, which our Constitution dictates and which was the reason the men who fought for this country 100 years, whom we celebrate, did so. The Government wants to serve its global masters. They say jump and the Government asks, "How high?" We saw it during the lockdown. The big conglomerates made a fortune while small businesses were destroyed. The Government is wiping small businesses off the face of the earth. There are no supports at all for those businesses while there are supports for the bigger companies in paying their electricity bills. There is no help for small businesses. People on the road, hauliers and all those people badly need support.

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