Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I take the Deputy's interruptions as a compliment on the quality of my speech.

In response to a balanced, ambitious and progressive budget, we have heard an incoherent barrage of attacks and no meaningful debate. The Opposition would like nothing better than to claim that they are facing some form of neo-Thatcherite Government. Of course, the reality is that we have been consistently progressive. The biggest income boost of the measures in our cost-of-living package and the more permanent budget package goes to the poorest sections of our society. Everyone benefits but the biggest benefit goes to those who need it the most. All one has to do is avail of the ESRI SWITCH model to demonstrate that. Next year, fully 24% of all income taxes will be paid by the top 1% of earners. European Union figures show that Ireland has one of the most redistributive tax and welfare systems. It also shows that inequality has fallen since 2019. The relevant coefficient is subject to minor annual fluctuations but, overall, it has fallen by nearly 4% because of this Government. In this year's budget, the increase in disposable income for the poorest families will be four times that of the highest income bracket.

It also has to be said that many of the pre-budget proposals from the Opposition would be deeply regressive in their impact and would permanently narrow the tax base at a time of uncertainty. The fact that we are the only country in the world where the far left wants to abolish all property taxes shows just how cynical their approach is.

Fundamentally, we have to strike a balance which is fair to all sections of society. We must help those in need but, equally, we cannot penalise the very people we need to create employment and opportunities for us all.

This budget again demonstrated our commitment to helping families during a sustained cost-of-living crisis which has hit across much of the world. Energy prices remain artificially elevated due to a combination of Russia's imperialistic aggression against Ukraine and the flawed operation of elements of the international energy market. An exceptional situation requires exceptional measures. The energy credits which we are providing will help families and businesses when energy use is at its highest in the middle of winter. Increases in pensions and all social protection schemes will underpin an increased disposable income for those who are most in need of help. At the same time, every taxpayer will see important improvements in take-home pay.

This budget allocates huge increases for people on social protection and in the overall social protection budget. This investment will deliver better outcomes in tackling poverty for children. It will also meet the demographic pressures, particularly in terms of the payments to dependant children, and also in terms of domiciliary care allowance with the €20 increase which is a very significant increase and a worthy one, and a well-deserved one in the face of the cost pressures that a family with children of additional needs have to face. The various once-off payments, in terms of the €2 billion that we have provided, will support households and families, in particular, to respond to the cost of living. It will help, in particular, those on lower incomes to a higher degree. That cost-of-living package, even on its own, supports the lower income deciles 1 and 2 more than the rest.

At the core of this budget, however, is a sustained investment in securing our country's future. The roughly €15 billion to be spent in the public capital programme will address both the urgent needs of today and strengthen the foundations on which we can ensure prosperity well into the future. There is no argument but that we need to substantially invest in utilities and in infrastructure, in the energy grid, in road and rail and public transport infrastructure, in housing and, above all, in water infrastructure.

It is absolutely right that we focus on waste when it appears, when projects cost amounts which cannot be justified by the outcome. The fact that the Comptroller and Auditor General systematically reviews public capital spending is a great strength of our system and that is why we have the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General, but however much certain projects develop problems, the overwhelming evidence is that capital investment is delivering for the Irish people. There are many roads that have come in on time and on budget, for example, the N4 - Castlebaldwin, the N59 - Moycullen bypass and the Dunkettle interchange. I attended the opening of the Dunkettle interchange. That was a major engineering feat. It has delivered. It has been very effective in terms of that particular junction and road and it has opened up now new opportunities for housing, etc. Many schools have been built and many members of the Opposition have been at those schools. I never heard any Opposition Deputy object when a school was being opened that it somehow cost too much or was excessive. They were all there for the photographs but the more important serious point is the completion of schools, such as Scoil Mhuire gan Smál in Blarney, a new post-primary school with accommodation for 1,000 pupils including four new classrooms for special education needs students completed in three phases with a total investment of €31 million and delivered; Limerick Educate Together Secondary School, Castletroy, 1,000 pupils, post-primary, four classrooms for children with special educational needs, completed in December 2023 at €35.5 million; and St. Conleth's primary and St. Mary's infants school, Newbridge, County Kildare, 18 new classrooms, four classrooms for children with special educational needs, completed in phases between January 2023 and June 2024, an investment of €23 million.

The HSE has now delivered 174 primary care centres that are currently in operation. I can recall my own health strategy putting primary care at the centre nearly 20 years ago. Those primary care facilities now are across the length and breadth of the country and the majority have been delivered on time and on budget. Examples include Ballincollig in Cork, Fermoy, Cobh, Killashandra in Cavan, Bettystown in Meath, Clondalkin in Dublin and Arklow - all high-quality projects delivered on time. Twelve hundred hospital beds have been delivered, on time and on budget, in extensions and new builds in hospitals across the country. St. Luke's in Kilkenny and the Rock Wing in the Mater are some examples.

I have gone through the road budget. I say all of this to make the point that, yes, the bike shed should never have happened in my view. The Comptroller and Auditor General is correct to call out where there is excessive expenditure but we must also make the point that an extensive range of projects across a range of public services have come on stream and are delivering far better services and quality as a result of the investment. Our investments in water, in economic infrastructure, in health, in schools and in every area of capital investment show a sustained commitment to securing our country's prosperity and progress, not only today but, indeed, in the years ahead.

Housing remains, and will be, for many years one of the most important challenges we face. Our rising population as well as unmet demand mean we have to continue to do everything we possibly can to increase the supply of homes for people to buy or rent. We have to build more houses as fast as we possibly can. However, there is equally no other area of public policy, which requires as sustained and diverse a programme of action as house building. More than 115,000 homes have been built so far during our mandate. We have succeeded in step changing house building from 20,000 per year to almost 40,000. We now have to push hard to build on this momentum. We need to get 60,000 homes per annum to deal with the challenge we have, but that capacity has to be built and grown. Our radical overhaul of unreasonable delays in the planning process will soon complete its passage and we can begin to enact its provisions. Hopefully we will be able to act faster in the face of the sort of systemic blocking of projects we have so often seen from Sinn Féin politicians as they work hard to try to delay urgently needed homes. We are acting to train more workers to build the homes, to free up more land to make essential utilities available and, of course, we are providing funding to help people who want to buy a home of their own. Having introduced the first ever scheme to assist people with the cost of rent, we are now building further on it. Among many absurd attacks from Sinn Féin in the past 24 hours has been the claim that we are giving up on housing. The fact shows that we are actually accelerating action on housing. It is true that Sinn Féin talks a lot about housing, but when looking more closely at the emperor's new housing policy, we find there is nothing there. It is collection of invented figures-----

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