Edward Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sure I will probably echo some of the sentiments expressed by Deputy Lahart. At the end of his contribution, he referred to something with which I will start, namely that the programme for Government is laudable and I commend it. However, it is based on the premise that we continue as a prosperous country and continue to collect taxes, primarily from foreign multinationals. For example, out of the approximately 2.6 million people working in this country, about 350,000 work for multinationals. More than 50% of all of the taxes collected in this country come from multinationals. Corporation tax comprises approximately 87%. VAT, PAYE and PRSI exceed 50% of all of the tax take. It is, therefore, critical that we protect those jobs and industries, otherwise the programme for Government will fall apart.

We should also separately develop a long-term plan for Ireland that looks at infrastructure development over several decades and not just for five years, particularly in areas of health and education. Other points I will make in relation to the programme for Government are on cost control. We need to implement new approaches to controlling costs in all aspects of public services expenditure, both capital and revenue.

Support for small businesses needs to be a critical element of this and we should implement, as far as possible, the proposal contained in the Supporting SMEs position paper, published by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in May 2024 and the January 2024 paper entitled Reducing Red Tape. In particular, the area of access to lending by SMEs needs to be addressed. I know from first-hand experience this is a real challenge. On taxes, I welcome that we plan to index tax bands, thresholds and credits annually because if we do not do that, we effectively have stealth taxes every year. We also need to index the calculation of capital gains tax. As things stand, this is actually a stealth tax every year that people are probably not fully aware of.

The fair deal scheme has flaws in it and I would like to see those addressed. We need to review the operation where land assets transferred within five years have no time limit and are 100% lost after 14 years. Means testing of State benefits has not been updated. We need to review the calculation of means testing social welfare benefits. The current means test calculation, based on assets, has not been updated for many years and this is proving very penal. I have an example of a person, an elderly man, who is on a non-contributory old age pension. He owns approximately ten acres of land and his pension was cut from €280 down to €140 and he is struggling to live on it. This needs to be updated.

We need increased investment in national roads following the reductions in recent years that have not kept pace with inflation. Effectively, there have been real reductions in investment in national roads. In particular in my own county of Wicklow, we need the upgrade of the N81 - the only national road out of Dublin that has never been upgraded - and the N11, which has horrendous traffic jams which I hear about every single day. We need increased investment in rail and light rail, in particular extra tracks country wide, with DART extensions to Wicklow and a LUAS to Blessington - which I successfully inserted in the Wicklow development plan. Extra train carriages are a priority.

On agriculture, we need to devise a new strategy to eradicate TB. On housing supply, the national planning framework needs to be finalised and is preventing much-needed house building. It is based on outdated population targets. Recently, in Blessington, only 20 miles from where we are standing here, a planning application for 335 houses was refused because the national planning framework was not up to date. We need to allow headroom in our zoning - that headroom was removed by the planning regulator - because not all land that is zoned will actually ever be practically developed. There is a restriction on that which I am sure the Ceann Comhairle is aware of herself. On rural planning, the national planning framework needs to be updated because it has been used to prevent rural planning, especially where the phrase "areas under urban pressure" has been used.

The 25 recommendations of the Seanad review committee on local government, published earlier this year, need to be implemented. We have among the weakest local government in the whole of Europe. Digitalisation needs to be developed.

I will finish with tourism, it will only take 20 seconds. I have a new proposal here-----

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