Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I did a fair bit of it in your own constituency. It was good to be in Donegal. The Deputy persists in trying to misrepresent the budget. Week in week out, he comes in here and says that €9.4 billion more is being spent etc. and then he tries to pivot to suggest it is all being spent in a certain direction. He ignores the fact and does not tell people at home that the bulk of that money went to increasing public services. I presume he agrees with the very significant increase - hundreds of millions of euro extra - in funding for disability services that came out of that pot to which he referred. I presume he agrees with the very significant increase in the education budget, including for capitation fees and special education, all the extra funding to our health service and the largest ever social protection budget, including measures for carers and a major expansion in fuel allowance increases for pensioners. To be honest, I am not sure any more whether he agrees with measures we took to try to help the hospitality sectors in towns and villages in Donegal and across this country. They said to us that their cost base was too high and that was having a real impact on them in keeping the doors open, in servicing the tourism sector, which is such an important part of our economy, and in keeping people in employment. That is a whistle-stop tour of where a lot of the money went in this budget.

The Deputy is making a constant effort to misrepresent and mislead the Irish people on the measures we took in relation to housing supply, but they are the right measures. We took a decision to reduce the cost of building an apartment to help to make sure more apartments are built. This week, there was an Oireachtas housing committee meeting. I am not sure if the Deputy has seen it. If he has not, I am sure Deputy Ó Broin will fill him in. Person after person who has responsibility for building apartments came in and said this will make a real difference and will mean we can build more homes for young people to buy and rent.

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