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

-----who are very disgruntled and out of sorts because of the Government's failure to reduce the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9%. It had all kinds of money to do just that and it would rather spend it here on bicycle sheds and huts and what have you and the children's hospital where it has no control in the world over where the money is going. There is no account whatsoever of when it will be finished. There is no accountability with the finances the Government has or where it spends them.

It is unsettling and unnerving for the people who are trying to provide jobs around our county. The one request they had, and the Minister got several requests from several of us on this side of the House, was to reduce the VAT rate and it failed to do that. Many jobs will be in jeopardy and many small businesses will close down. On top of the fact that footfall has fallen and the Government has raised the commercial rates by three or four times, there are many things hitting businesses at present, such as the cost of goods, employment and all the regulations for extra holidays, sick days and everything. Employees are entitled to that, but when the Government raises the minimum wage, it is the employer who has to pay it - the Government does not pay it - and when the minimum wage goes up, all the wages have to go up. The Minister knows that but he ignores it and I cannot understand.

If we lose the employers, the Government will lose the tax they pay and the jobs they provide. It will have to pay social welfare to those people, because there is a whole raft of people who are all suffering, including those who work on Jarveys, in craft and souvenir shops, and even hairdressers. There are so many I cannot think of them all right now, but every one of them has been in contact with me and with other elected representatives. I cannot understand the methodology at all in refusing to do this. Several cases were made for it. Why in the name of God did the Government ignore these people? These are people who have been in business for many years. There has never been more of a market falling away than this year and they were trying to keep going until the end of the year to see whether the Government would give them some lift or perk. It did not. It buried them and they cannot face the time after Christmas. Some of them will probably stay on until Christmas, but a lot of them will be gone by the new year. I do not know how the Government will answer that. It will realise its mistake in a short time because it will be paying out way more social welfare.

These people were masters of what they were doing and they had the ingenuity and a way to provide jobs for people and they were doing it gladly. They were proud to be employers. They will now be wiped out because of the combination of things that have been loaded on top of them. They had one request. There is a whole lot of them; it is not only a select few. They are all around Killarney and the Ring of Kerry. They are everywhere in every nook and corner. They are suffering. I do not want to name the towns, but I was in many different towns in Kerry that were once thriving places and some of them are becoming desolate. Will the Minister reconsider at this late stage reducing the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9%?

I will mention one more issue because many people are talking about it, and that is the means test for carers. This was another chance to help people who provide a service and are justified in thinking they should get some credit for it. These people would be minding the people anyway, but it is unfair not to look after them. In every house, one person is working and the person who is doing the caring for the elderly father or mother or invalid sick sister or brother is doing it free gratis. The Government gives medical cards to people coming in from other countries. That is fine, but we should be looking after our own people who cannot get them. Likewise, we should be looking after carers. Often they are family members. Sometimes they are not; they are only neighbours and because they have other income - their partner, spouse or whatever may have another income - they are denied. Will the Minister look at that as well?

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