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

I thank the Government for the increases in social welfare, which mean a lot to people who are on the breadline, such as pensioners, people with disabilities and so on. However, the word from Kerry, which I represent, is that many people in the tourism sector are very disappointed that the VAT rate was not reduced to 9%. Many providers in the nooks and corners in all the different places of Kerry are very disappointed. Many of them were waiting for this reduction and hoping they could survive, but many have closed already and many more will close.

There are increases in rates and in wages, and the Government was boasting about the minimum wage.

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It is the employers who have to pay that, as they have to pay all of the other wages. That is a fact. The Government keeps saying that the rates are the doing of the local authorities. No, the local authorities are just the collectors. Tailte Éireann sets the rates.

The costs of electricity have gone up every whole day since the Government closed Bord na Móna. Now, the State is importing woodchip from South America into Shannon Foynes Port and transporting it up to Offaly to keep the generating station going. There is importation of briquettes from Germany and Lithuania. So much for carbon footprint. No matter how much the Government raises the carbon tax, it will still not change the weather. Ireland is now the most expensive country for fuel in Europe after today.

On the health service, people in Kerry who get sick are being constantly medically compromised. There are 50 posts for nurses and carers in University Hospital Kerry, UHK, which are not filled. Killarney Community Nursing Unit has six posts which are not filled. In Kenmare Community Nursing Unit, many beds are not even opened even though the new hospital is open since 2012. In Dingle there are three posts vacant and in Cahirsiveen there are two posts vacant. In the Government's budget, it said that it would provide more beds. It cannot provide the beds if it does not provide nurses and carers. That is what is wrong. Many beds are still empty in Kerry tonight because they do not have the nurses and carers to staff them. That is the gospel truth.

GPs are constantly under pressure because the immigrant population has increased in Killarney and in different places around the Ring of Kerry.

The Government has reduced the reimbursements for cataracts and many patients may lose their eyesight if they cannot afford to go to Belfast. On the delay in ambulances, the baby in Castleisland in recent days who stopped breathing would have had to wait for an hour and a half only for the mother got someone to drive her child to UHK. That is not satisfactory.

Nurses and carers who came out of retirement to work for the HSE are now being told that they have to pay back some of their pensions but if they worked for private providers, they do not have to pay it back at all. The Government must look at that.

On our motion, the Minister indicated that he will increase the cap for carers. That will not happen until next July. We asked the Government to do away with the means testing. That is all we asked. They deserve that.

The increase in carbon tax today further exasperates everyone who has to use a car to go to work, increasing costs for lorries and commercial vehicles and the transporting of food, essential goods and supplies, and the transporting of agricultural products. Passenger bus hire and taxis will also be impacted. The carbon tax is also pricing vehicles off the road.

There is very little money for roads in Kerry. With the widening of the footpaths, it is narrowing the roads. On the Rock Road in Killarney, the thoroughfare is reduced and to compound it, the road going up Spa Cross that serves Kilcummin, Tiernaboul and Gneevgullia, where people come all the way down that road, is being narrowed. That is ordained by the Green Party and is the price for having them as partners in government. It was the other Government parties who picked them. The road will collapse now because the lorries will have to go up on the footpaths and put the bicycles out on the road because the road is narrow now in many places with the two sets of footpaths and cycle ways on either side of the road.

The Killarney bypass is 24 years in the waiting. Blackwater Bridge to Sneem was built for horses and carts over 200 years ago. In the local roads, the local improvement scheme, LIS, scheme has 660 such roads still on the waiting list. Farmers who were promised their agri climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, payments had to wait six months or more. The costs of diesel and for all services are going up all of the time leaving many struggling to survive. The nitrates derogation and rules and regulations are driving farmers into the ground.

Farmers who wish to supply the grid from solar energy are held up by the ESB as their infrastructure, lines and transformers are not adequate. Farmers were told it could produce 60% to 80% of their own power and are now told that they can only provide 30% to 40%.

On infrastructure, sewerage and water treatment plants, Kenmare is waiting over 12 years and Beaufort is waiting seven or eight years before progress is made to put it out to tender. This is what people have to put up with. Scartaglin and Currow have no treatment plant and share systems. Brosna and Moyvane cannot even build one other house until the treatment plant is upgraded.

At the same time we are spending billions of euro on immigrants. Some €2 billion has been spent this year and €3 billion to €4 billion over the past two years. We are not even sure where many of these have come from and we are entitled to know that. It will be a great country if we can stick it.

We are squandering money and spending €336,000 for a bicycle shed and almost €1.5 million for a hut. We cannot even do the necessary river cleaning to protect our homes or our roads.

I welcome the hot meals programme that is being introduced and I welcome any improvement to the bus transport service but there is no clarity in the Minister's statement as to what is going to happen there.

I am very worried and concerned about the Social, Personal and Health Education, SPHE, curriculum that is being ordained by this Government and the Minister. Many concerned parents have contacted me regarding the new SPHE curriculum, have asked for a stop to be put to it and for the carrying out of an urgent review of the explicit content. This is sexual exploitation of children and there is something wrong when the schools are telling the children not to tell their parents what is happening inside those classes.

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