Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas. Ar ndóigh, níor airigh mé na blianta ag imeacht. Is í seo an uair dheireanach a bheidh deis agam cúpla focal a rá maidir leis an gcáinaisnéis. Beidh 32 bliain caite agam sa Teach seo sa chéad mhí eile. Tá mé ag ceapadh gurb é seo an 32ú cáinaisnéis a chonaic mé. Ar ndóigh, chonaic an Teachta Durkan i bhfad níos mó acu ná mé.

Is é ceann de na dúshláin atá ann i láthair na huaire – agus is rud é seo a thug muid faoi deara 20 bhliain ó shin – ná nuair a bhíonn airgead sa chiste, bíonn chuile dhuine ag iarraidh é a chaitheamh. Nuair a ídítear ansin é, bíonn daoine ag rá cén fáth ar caitheadh an t-airgead sin?

One of the things I remember about the cycle of the 2000s and into the following decade was that I received many delegations as a Minister in which people pointed to how we had a certain surplus. I believe the amount was €3 billion or €5 billion. That was after having put money into the pensions reserve fund. When the money ran out, though, they all questioned why we had spent so much. Such is human nature. I can understand that people’s expectations grow exponentially as money becomes plentiful, particularly when people are constantly talking about surpluses. In the greater scheme of things, we have good surpluses. However, we all know from running households that, if there are two incomes but then half of one of them is lost, we suddenly find that what was a good surplus every year becomes very tight rationing.

It is important to point out that, before this budget, next year's projected Exchequer balance was to have been €9.95 billion. This figure did not include the transfer of €4 billion to the Future Ireland Fund and a further €2 billion to the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. Adding these amounts back into the overall figure would have given a real surplus of more than €15 billion. It is right that we recognise that there has been a significant turnaround.

Wages are increasing, but so is inflation and the cost of living, so it is important to realise that, if the Government did not increase welfare payments and give extra tax credits, people would be going backwards. The income tax take will be larger next year, please God, than it was this year. The first amount of money is only stand-still money in real terms.

Eleven minutes seems like a lot of time, but it is not really, so I will move on to the windfall. A commitment has been given that some of the windfall will be spent on necessary infrastructure. So far, the national development plan has been skewed towards the east coast, but there are urgent infrastructural needs outside of the major urban centres. The parts of the country I am referring to are the ones we can develop cheaply. There is space for people and we are not trying to cram them onto land that is very expensive to develop. I hope that some critical projects can be expedited. On the first list of early movers is a project that is ready to go, namely, the reopening of the rail line that lies between Athenry and Claremorris. This line would connect Castlebar, Westport and Ballina to Galway and provide a commuter rail service in the west. I put it to the naysayers that they were naysayers about the Limerick railway as well, but we are only getting one complaint about the rail line from Limerick to Galway, and that is that people cannot get on trains in Athenry because they are jammed. The service is poor, so we need more carriages, longer platforms and so on to meet the level of demand. We need the ring road for Galway, but it is not money that has held up that project. Rather, planning has held it up. I hope that this issue gets sorted.

The other major issue for rural Ireland, be it a rural constituency in Kildare or a constituency in rural Connacht, is the importance of micro-infrastructure. Many small rural roads are not safe or up to standard and certainly do not have adequate surfaces.

I have been banging on about another point for some time. We hear people talking about paying for water and sewerage services and so on. Thankfully, domestic customers do not pay for those. According to the Department of housing, 10% of houses in this country do not have access to a public water supply. For every metre a scheme is extended, it costs €300, so it is €3,000 for 10 m and so on. It gets ridiculous. It is crazy money. We need a national broadband scheme for water that, over ten years, would extend the public water supply to every house in the country. Every house should have access to broadband, electricity, water and a decent road.

Is mian liom bogadh ar aghaidh agus focal a rá faoi rud a chuir an-díomá orm sa cháinaisnéis. Aithním go ndearna an tAire ealaíne méid áirithe airgid a chur ar fáil do TG4. É sin ráite, bheadh sé fáillí, ar an seans deiridh a bheith agam labhairt ar an gcáinaisnéis, gan codarsnacht a dhéanamh idir an airgead atá an TG4 ag fáil le seirbhís teilifíse a chur ar fáil trí mhionteanga agus an méid atá RTÉ ag fáil on státchiste, idir cheadúnas agus airgead díreach. Tá sé ráite sa phreasráiteas a cuireadh amach inné gur €60 milliún a bheidh ag RTÉ an bhliain seo chugainn. Is €225 milliún a bheidh ag RTÉ. Níl aon bhealach, dar liomsa, gur féidir a mhíniú cén fáth go bhfuil sé sin cothrom ar bhealach ar bith. Tá súil agam go mbreathnófar ar an gceist sin.

I was on the social welfare committee and spent many years working on social welfare issues. I welcome the improvement in the rates and I am glad it is the same rate this year and nobody has said that since inflation is going down, we are not giving the same rate. While lots of people getting a social welfare pension have other incomes, if they have contributions paid and are totally dependent on social welfare, living off it is difficult. Often people have nothing to fall back on.

I welcome the increase in the domiciliary care allowance. I do not think we did enough in the past on this. It is still only €84 a week. It is paid by the month so it looks a little bigger but it is €84 a week. For someone with a child where there are a lot of extra costs, it is not a huge sum of money.

One issue I will mention and that I will come back to when we are debating the Social Welfare Bill is means testing. I welcome the changes in the carer's allowance but you would think that carer's allowance is the only means-tested payment. In fact, it is the most generously tested means-tested payment, as those of us who hold clinics can see. There is very little reform. The Department has been two years writing a paper that we still have not seen. I will give a simple example of how crazy the anomalies are. Many of the people who do not have a non-contributory pension were small farmers or small fishermen with so low an income that they were getting farm assist or whatever and were not eligible to pay a social security or PRSI contribution. If they were in a PAYE employment and were over 66, they could earn €200 a week and there would be no means test. If they earn that from a small farm, fishing or semi-self employment, it is means tested in a vicious way that is totally unfair. Basically a euro is taken off for every euro earned.

The same thing happens to those on disability allowance. We are talking about the carers all the time but nobody is talking about the cared for, the people on disability allowance, where, again, the means test is incredibly severe. Táim beagnach as am. Tá go leor eile ar mhaith liom a rá. Cuirim fáilte roimh an gcáinaisnéis tríd is tríd ach má tá go leor déanta, tá go leor fós le déanamh.

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