Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I first want to wish the best to our usher team leader, Tara Humpston. It is her first day as team leader in the Chamber. She has done a mighty job and there was not a word out of place today. We were all very quiet.

This budget is like the curate's egg - good in spots. However, there are a lot of spots in it that can go awfully bad and can turn into what we know in the country as a glugger. That is what is going to happen because of reckless spending. We have to welcome the energy tax credits. Struggling home owners need those, but we need to tackle the energy companies and the reasons we have the highest electricity prices in Europe. It is Government failure because it is in the pockets of big business - full stop, clean and simple. Giving taxpayers' money back to them to pay the bills is nonsense. You would not survive like that for one hour in a business.

Every year, we wait eagerly to hear if the help-to-buy scheme will be extended and I was glad to hear this year of a more substantial extension until 2029. However, the elephant in the room with the help-to-buy scheme is that the only people eligible are those building or buying new homes. How many new homes are really being built? That is the problem. They are not being built. This scheme has to be extended to second-hand homes, the market where people start their homes and everything else. Homes are not being built. In spite of the Government's figures and spin, it is not happening.

The support for carers is also very welcome and long overdue. We referenced the failed care referendum and the promises the Government made to look after the carers to try to force them to go and vote for it. It now shows that they are being looked after anyway, and rightly so. They deserve that, and much more, so much. The maternity increase for new babies is a wonderful initiative. The increase in that is badly wanted because there are lots of costs before and after a pregnancy, as Deputy Tóibín said.

The failure to reduce the VAT rate is appalling. Representatives of the Restaurants Association of Ireland were in here and met us all. They begged and pleaded and made a budget submission. It was a waste of paper.

Restaurants are disappearing all over the country, especially in small towns and villages in rural Ireland, at a rate of knots. The Government knows that as well but it is inept and has failed to act. Whether it was that the big hotels would not allow it to do it but the Government says it cannot have a split rate of VAT. How come other European countries can have it? It is an abject failure. Companies are under pressure with energy costs and the increase in the minimum wage will put more cost on them. There is also sick pay, new insurance measures and the mandatory pension scheme that is coming in this year. The Government is oblivious to the troubles of these companies.

I met the president of the Irish Road Haulage Association earlier. He is appalled. There is nothing for hauliers in the budget. There is not one bit of initiative, apart from putting up carbon tax and adding to the price of fuel again for them. This industry is already in trouble and we cannot do without it. Hauliers move every product we produce through the country and abroad and they got sweet you-know-what. It is so unfair.

The Government called its €400 payment for businesses the power up grant. My God, €400 is not going to power up much. It is a bit insensitive when so many businesses are struggling to keep the power on. Whoever writes these speeches for the Government had the insensitivity to call this power up. It will amount to €77 per week. That will not power up a lot in this day and age. Such audacity. That is the kind of a bubble the Government is in. It has such a false sense of security thinking it can buy votes and buy the people. The grant is for businesses paying rates of under €30,000. I have a case of a hotel in south Tipperary. Its VAT bill last year was €30,200 and it was denied the payment. In actual fact, it applied and got the payment and then had to pay it back. It is the same issue. It is not being increased either. It is so unfair that it is not a sliding scale. If a business is €200 over the threshold, it will get nothing of the €5,000 that was given this year and €4,000 last year. The Government has to be able to tweak these schemes.

There is the whole situation regarding housing and no initiatives. It is shocking. The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, was flying kites a number of weeks ago about imposing massive stamp duty on people from abroad. As I said, bulk buyers of ten or more properties face a 10% stamp duty. The Government has increased this to 15%. It should have gone up to 40% and I will explain why. Four in every ten houses built in this country are bought by these vulture funds, investment companies or whatever we want to call them. Since the Government has come into power, the number has increased by 223%, with, as I said, four in every ten homes now being bought by these investment companies. How can ordinary people get a home? The Government can window-dress this all it likes and play around with bits and pieces of money here and there. Incidentally, it is taxpayers' money and the Government does that do them.

The increase in the carbon tax by €7.50 per tonne is another punitive measure on ordinary people, road hauliers, the agriculture industry and anybody who has to put fuel in a machine, car or anything else. As I said, there are inflationary pressures in the budget. The Government is increasing spending by 6.9%, exceeding its own recommendation of a 5% threshold. This will drive up inflation, as warned by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, potentially adding €250 to household costs according to the Central Bank. Yet, the Government goes along with this folly because it wants to buy the election and voters. I hope the voters will see through it and will not be so foolish. I remember in 1977 an election was bought. Other elections were also bought and we paid dearly for them.

The challenges for SMEs are enormous. The Government does not seem to get it. Across the board, it is bringing in regulation after regulation and makes things more cumbersome. A company with six or seven employees would definitely need one secretarial assistant to deal with all the regulation. It is form after form. Regulation has mushroomed; it is crazy.

As I said, the inflationary pressures on the budget are crazy. When we had a surplus and huge sums, we could do something about it and give something meaningful. As Deputy Shanahan said, we could also be a bit visionary, as the late T. K. Whitaker was, and do something with the money we have, rather than patching holes and being self-serving. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens, who are going to obliterated, are trying to buy the voters to get back into power again. We have a long-term responsibility and duty of care to our people and our forefathers who built this country, supported it and put it where it is, not to fritter it away on election promises and spin. The Government has more spin doctors now than it has anything else. There are overruns and nothing can be built. It seems no project can be done by the OPW or by any of the Government's procurement companies. There are massive overruns and nothing can be done. However, the enablers, the self-employed people who want to do it, will not be let do it. It is an opportunity lost. Of course, the Ministers concerned will not even stay in the House to listen. It was the height of ignorance earlier that everybody fled from the Chamber when Sinn Féin Members were given their time.

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