Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. Listening to Deputy Mattie McGrath most recently and earlier this evening, he failed to acknowledge that this is a much more fragmented Dáil. There are many political parties and each political party will contest the election on its own platform. This outgoing Government is a government of three very distinct and unique individual parties that fought the last election on their own election manifesto and will fight this election on their own election manifesto. As the Minister, Deputy Chambers, quite rightly said, what the Government achieved in the reduction of the USC went over and above what the party had gone to the country with on the last occasion. I compliment the Minister for achieving that in the negotiations for this budget. If we are to take on board that we are all the same, as Deputy Mattie McGrath concluded, then all the Independent Deputies must be the same. He must be the same as the People Before Profit Deputies or whatever other Independents, including the Independent Alliance and Independent Ireland. They are all the same by Deputy McGrath's calculation but they are not.

He wants to have his cake and to eat it, as he is a Deputy who likes to use old sayings in Dáil debates. I compliment the Minister for Finance on achieving the reduction in the universal social charge. We would certainly like to see us going further. Where I agree with Deputy McGrath is that as a Government, we have to continually strive to ensure that we incentivise and reward work. It is most important that the people who get up and go to work feel that they are getting a break and that they are supported and rewarded for what they do. We are very fortunate in this country today that we have full employment and that anybody who wants a job here does not have to go abroad to get work. They have the opportunity to work in this country and indeed many people are coming from abroad to work here because it is an attractive place to work. I, for one, will always speak up for and talk up the benefits of the country rather than talk down how good this country is doing like some of our colleagues. The fact that the Minister was able to secure a budget surplus means that we have the necessary resources now to tackle the issues out there. There are challenges but there are always challenges in society. How a government responds to those challenges is critically important.

Listening to some Opposition Members, one might somehow believe that the cost-of-living measures introduced were somewhat wrong. If people take a very short look at some of their social media pages, they will see that they are all welcoming and advertising when the cost-of-living measures will be introduced and paid to the recipients. On the one hand, they are criticising us in here for what we are doing and, on the other, they are going on social media and advising people when these measures that this Government has introduced will become available to them.

I will make one other point that I would like the Minister to clarify. I am not sure it is exactly relevant to this section but based on the fact that we may not get to the relevant section, I welcome the extension to the help-to-buy scheme. Going back to what previous speakers said, this is about rewarding people who work and giving those people the opportunity to claim their tax back so that they can buy their first home. This is about supporting people into home ownership. This is, again, another aspiration of our party. I welcome the fact that there is certainty in this regard out to 2029. On the help-to-buy scheme, I refer to the rigidity, sometimes, of how schemes are implemented by Revenue and on the loan-to-value criteria. Sometimes the initial loan to value that is submitted can be different from when the actual house is completed. Revenue still will not take on board an updated loan to value.

Let us say somebody is starting out building a house and they have a desire to build it to a certain specification with a Rolls Royce finish. The garden, the landscaping, the garage and everything is done but for whatever reason they do not get to finish it off because they do not have the money to do so. Then the value of the property is less than what the projected value of it is and when they look to achieve their drawdown of the loan-to-value, they are told the loan-to-value now does not meet the criteria. That is wrong because the valuation on a completed property is much more realistic than a projected valuation on the property when the application is made on day one. The property may not have been finished to the standard people wanted. They may not have put in hardwood doors internally or may have opted for an IKEA kitchen over a handmade one because that is all they could afford. Then when they go back to avail of the help-to-buy scheme they are told the original valuation submitted must be stuck with. That needs to change. I raised it with the Minister's office with reference to two specific cases in my constituency and did so as well as with the Minister's predecessor. Both times there was an undertaking to review this or to explore if something could be done and I would certainly welcome something being done in this regard. I compliment Deputy Chambers on what he achieved in his short term as Minister for Finance.

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