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

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk on this very serious matter. I am an employer, as was my father going back to 1955 and my son now operates the business. That is almost 70 years. Friday evening, pay day, comes very quickly for businesses. This could be the best country in the world if it was managed properly. TDs on this side of the House are saying the country is awash with money but if it is, there are people paying for it. People are paying for excise and VAT on diesel and petrol. People who have to travel the roads to get to work are paying an exorbitant price that is not being paid in any other country. A barrel of oil is cheaper today than it has been for a long time in spite of what is happening here in Ireland. There is reckless squandering of money.

The Government is telling us that we must opt into this EU migration pact. How is it that we must do that, based on what the Government tells us, but Denmark and other countries are not opting in at all? Let us take Denmark as an example. It has a proper home care service for its elderly people, who are looked after mostly at home. Rarely is there a need to go into a nursing home or community hospital because they are being properly looked after and properly paid for there. It is impossible to get home help for elderly people to keep them at home. People may get 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening. They get nothing for the weekend, particularly on bank holiday weekends. Is it that people get better for the weekend like Lazarus and then get sick or elderly again on Monday when they get a few minutes of care? What is happening is a shame.

Let us consider what businesses have to go through. It was grand to increase the minimum wage but it increased the maximum wage as well, because people go up pro rata and businesses feel that on top of all things, such as the VAT and the holidays. It is grand to give holidays to people and it is powerful, but someone has to pay for it and it is businesses that have to do it.

This is not clear at all. Will this pension be on top of the pension that people are getting already? How many years of contributions are needed to get a full contributory pension? The Minister has said it is from the age of 23 to 60, but people are working much longer. If they are earning under €20,000 and do not opt in, will they qualify for any pension? We have to ensure the pension age will not be increased. The Minister needs to realise that many people are paying 40% tax, some of them 52% in tax and 4.5% USC on top of that. We see €860,000 being spent to bring dogs and cats into the country and the country is alive with dogs. I wish the dogs could vote for me; there are dogs around in every yard. We have plenty of dogs without paying to bring in any more dogs. There are plenty of cats as well.

Up to €2.5 billion is being spent on migration. We spent €29 million on the referendum. Imagine what that would do for cancer patients. I saw a group of people last Sunday morning collecting for Kerry Cancer Support Group Healthlink Transport to take people who have cancer up to CUH for treatment. That has to be funded by volunteers. That is a shambles. I know these people are doing great work and we appreciate them for what doing in looking after their people. The Government could be doing much more and doing much wiser things with its money than squandering it the way it is squandering it.

People will not be able to stick it for long more. I am serious about that. I am not blaming the Minister personally and there is a whole gang of Ministers there. The Taoiseach rumbled through his speech so fast yesterday that we could not hear what he was saying. It was bubbub, bubbub, bubbub and no one knew what he was saying. We did not know who the Minister was in the way he went on with it. That was the case with junior Ministers, in any event. That is the way that our money is being squandered while getting no accountability at all for the money that is being squandered. The people out there are angry and that is what I am telling the Minister.

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