Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

One of the best reports today was in one of the newspapers, that "Budget 2025 delivers vast spending – but a dire lack of vision stores up disaster for the country". That was true, in my view, on so many fronts.

I look at the roads budget. I spoke quite a lot about other issues last night and I will not touch on them today. The VAT rate, at 13.5%, was one of the biggest mistakes the Government could ever make and it turned its back completely on small businesses. On roads funding, I would like to know where will the money go to. Where has the money gone down through the years? There is a massive lack of funds getting to the local authorities and they are begging for extra funding. In my constituency, on the N71, 37 mph is as much as I can go on most of the R586. Imagine a main road into west Cork from Bandon and Clonakilty to Skibbereen. It was 37 mph for eight or nine minutes the other day. In the name of God, lads, would you cop on? It has not worked. Passing bays is all we want, not millions of euro. It needs a common-sense spend so that people who are trying to do business can do business. If a farmer in his tractor is cutting his silage or there is a lorry or whatever, he is entitled to do his business on the small lane. However, it is not happening. It is the same story with Ballineen to Bantry, at 25 mph to 35 mph, pulling our hair out of our heads and causing accidents. As for bypasses in south and north Bandon, will they be included in the programme this year or will they be left out again? Is it the same for the bypass in Bantry?

On education, there is €9 million for lockable phones and schools are still starved of funding to fill the oil tank or pay the electricity bill. There is €9 million to lock away the phones but little or nothing for these schools that are going to the local parish priest or whoever to try to get a few bob to pay the bills. It is outrageous to have €9 million for lockable phones and no money for a bus to take over 25 students from Bantry to Schull. There is no funding for a bus service in Laragh in Bandon, and no funding for life-saving improvements for Laragh school after recent roadworks where the Minister for Education says it is not her issue even though it is outside the gate of the school and the local authority says it not its issue, and children could end up being killed.

I would spend hours here on the issue of accountability. There is the OPW and Uisce Éireann. The OPW spent the money on the bike shed and the security hut. It is all over the place. On the Schull Garda station, a number of years ago, it was old there was a leak when it was putting up the roof initially and it walked away. Two years later, it spent €200,000 on the roof. It is outrageous. It is continuous waste. Even with dental services, we cannot even get dental services in my constituency.

See this speech in context