Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that, if it is going to happen, because a lot of farmers have raised it today. I urge the Minister of State to try to do that if he can.

One issue that has come out today, and the devil is always in the detail and things might be said that are right or wrong, is the €9 million for some sort of pouches for people to put their phones into in schools. I would like clarification on that. It is a while since I went to school, but we had a locker, and if people can throw the phone into the locker, they do not need these pouches people are talking about that cost €9 million. We need to tighten up on stuff like that. It makes a laugh out of a budget that might do good things for certain people, but there will be a few things that trip us up and cause a problem.

I welcome the money that is going into childcare because it is needed. The only thing is that there will always be people who ring us when we are driving home at night a couple of hours after having seen the budget. The owner of a nursing home with 50 people working for them rang me last night. The owner does not deprive the staff of more money, but these are the facts I was given. They are facing into a situation whereby they have 50 staff, and the raise in the minimum wage - I want to be clear that they do not want to deprive the staff - will cost them €80,000. Auto-enrolment is coming in and granted, it has been put off for a year, but they have put a figure of €25,000 to €30,000 on that. Nursing homes probably use either gas around Dublin or kerosene in some places in many parts of the country; the carbon tax raise will cost them approximately €2,000 or €2,500. Rates are going up. They tallied it all up for me. This is a small business. This is the part I really find difficult to understand. It will cost them approximately €130,000. That is €2,500 per week that is not there at the moment. Unless the Government comes in on the other side in a few months' time when it is renegotiating the bed price and they get that, this is all driving things in one direction, and where is it going? Up, up and up with everything. Unless they get it on that side, it will not balance on this side. It is something we need to watch. In fairness to those people, I want to be clear that they do not deprive anyone of the wage increase. They are not opposed to giving a wage increase, but the Government has to give more on the other side. That is it. The State will be paying more on that side. That needs to happen in the budgets in health. For it to balance on this side, it will have to go up on the other side. The health budget is basically doing the same thing only it is costing more. We need to watch that.

The other people who are affected are small businesses in the hospitality sector. I know that some of the Ministers were in favour of it and I am not talking about beds. I am talking about businesses that serve food and the VAT rate that would keep the hospitality sector going. We have seen many businesses closing. I cannot see a whole lot in the budget for businesses around the country, unfortunately, to keep them going. The Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, is in the Chamber tonight. That is one thing that needs to be looked at to make sure we keep this small number of businesses going. Mr. Draghi did a report on competitiveness in the last few weeks that talked about multinationals. We are fairly reliant on them, and we welcome them. However, it has been said that we need to protect small operations as well.

In the line of agriculture, we know there is a crisis in the suckler herd. There is no escape. There is a bit of an increase from what there was, but the number of farmers in it is going downwards. It was written very well, whoever the scribe was. One would nearly get the impression that there is €70 million more in ACRES, but there is not. It is a budget to cater for 55,000 more farmers. I am glad that a Minister of State with responsibility for agriculture is in the Chamber because I would like clarification on those people who buy that dairy calf. Will they get money as well? My understanding at the moment is that the person who breeds and rears the calf will get it. This works like a marriage; it works both ways. We need to make sure we incentivise people to do it.

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