Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to get the opportunity to raise issues about this budget. All we ever ask in a budget is that the Minister and the Government be fair with all sectors of the people. That has not happened in this budget. Sadly, people depending on diesel and petrol-fuelled cars, where they have no other option, together with lorry men who are on the road day after day, were promised throughout the summer that the Government would help them in the budget and it did nothing at all for them. The Government is saying that whatever few pence it did give them off the cost of fuel last May or June will end at the end of February and the first day of March next year. The Minister is saying he is managing the finances well and that is how he has the €11 billion, but I say to him that most of that €11 billion is money he collected off people on the road. Four years ago the barrel of oil was cheaper then than it is now. At the same time, everyone is paying double except the farmers who are paying a great deal more. The Minister gave them two cents off. They are paying €1.50 a litre now, which is almost three quarters the cost of white diesel. Heretofore, they were only paying a third of the cost.

I told the Minister to reconsider the concrete levy. He considered it a bit all right but he is still leaving it at 5% and that is too much because, like I said, people who are buying materials to buy house are paying extra VAT and tax on these materials already. They are paying extra for concrete already, which has gone up from €80 to €115 a cubic metre. These people are paying extra VAT and tax to the Government already.

On housing, the Government makes such a hullabaloo and acclaim about the housing policy it has. We see, however, where in Kerry there are 171 vacant houses and the Government will not provide the funding to put both houses or voids back into production. What is wrong with the Minister?

Would it not be very easy to do that? These 171 houses have been vacant for three or four years. What is wrong with the Government that it will not deal with that?

On the cost of electricity, there is no account of the regulator at all. The electricity companies are allowed to double and triple their profits. We would not mind paying more for electricity if it cost them more to generate it. We see how hard it is for some people to get social welfare payments. Many pensioners will not receive the €500 bonus because they do not get fuel allowance or the living alone allowance. Despite this, there are Ukrainian men of fighting age here getting the same dole and supports as others even though they are being housed, fed and every other thing. All I am asking for is fair play across the board. Irish people who have been here all of their lives are not getting that fair play. I ask the Minister to look at those things and to review some of the decisions the Government has made because they are very unfair.

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