Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The budget was a missed opportunity for many young people who are in a middle road-type situation. Fuel is hitting them very hard. They will see very little increases after the budget, only certain pain. When the Minister was announcing the budget here in the House and when I first looked at the document, to the naked eye the Minister was going to give a decrease in the cost of fuel, but all he did was to continue something he had done earlier. The pain has grown and grown and, like previous speakers have said, the cost of fuel has gone crazy, at more than €2 a litre for a litre of diesel. It is an insane situation and people are feeling that very hard.

Agriculture is facing a crisis. I was speaking to some of the organisations during the week with the fall in the price of cattle and there is a serious worry out there. Bills are rising, as are fertiliser bills and costs. These are out of control, especially for agri-fuel. It would have been especially welcomed if the Minister had lowered the tax take. It was a greedy tax take by this Government but, of course, it is the only way it can get its hands on as much money as possible so that it can cycle out great amount of grants for this, that and the other thing to see if it can get its senior politicians elected again.

Moving to the fishing situation in this country, I would love to ask the Minister what fishermen ever did to him in school. I suppose he never saw a fisherman in his life in school because he certainly has something terrible against them. The Minister gave them nothing, absolute zilch, in this budget. They exist and are a great part of this country. They look at being completely whacked left, right and centre. The best the Government can come up with for them is decommissioning and tying up boats with money from Europe. Looking at them there, the French and Spanish Governments have given their fishermen fuel subsidies. What have our fishermen been given? Zero. The Government has announced an energy rebate which businesses get, which is fair enough, but the fishermen ask me if they are going to get an energy rebate because they are using very significant amounts of energy. Where are they going to get a rebate in this? I hope the Minister will address that when he speaks in a minute because they certainly deserve to survive, the same as anybody else. I know the Government has almost wiped them out but they certainly deserve to live as well.

People talk to me about the carer’s allowance and I ask that perhaps, in time, the Minister might look at the situation where people who genuinely care for their loved ones are being means-tested. It should not matter a damn if someone spends so many hours every day caring for either a neighbour or a loved one, but they cannot get that money if their husband or wife or whichever way it is is earning a little bit more than they should. Here is a person who is basically caring for someone and paying for it out of their own pocket.

I have serious worries about the tourism industry VAT going, perhaps, from 9% upwards. We cannot accept that could happen and I believe the Minister will need to clarify that. We certainly know the hotel industry, and have met quite a number of its representatives, has not been fleecing the people in west Cork. I accept some hotels have been. Those in west Cork have been very fair to the people. The one thing they told me is that some family members of these family-run hotels will be working for nothing if these hotels are to keep their doors open. This is a very serious issue and is one area where, if the VAT rises, it will have serious consequences. I have very little time left but I need to know about the VAT.

I know money was given for school transport but the school bus tickets issue is still a fiasco. The Government made a complete mess of it.

There is also the blocks issue, and while I am aware the percentage of the levy has been dropped and the Government has accepted it is to go from 10% to 5%, it was not good enough in the first place.

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