Michael D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I offer hearty congratulations to Senator Craughwell. I wish him well in his period in Seanad Éireann.

Every budget is about choices, and sometimes the choices are difficult. We were hopeful that the most difficult choices would have been made and that we will never have to revert to those choices and the boom and bust politics of the past because that is the reason so many people throughout the length and breadth of this country experienced personal catastrophes.

The big ticket item in this budget will be whether the 80% of households that will now have to pay for water, excluding the 20% who pay for their own water or pay via a group scheme, will be net beneficiaries of it. Will they gain or lose money? I have looked at as many examples as I could and it appears to be the case that the 80% who will have to pay for water in the future will benefit from this budget. It must be remembered that this is the first budget in the past eight in which this will be the case. The average household charge for water will be in the region of €250. Some people say it will be €278, others say it will be €238. However, it will be in that region which amounts to €5 a week.

I welcome the extension of the household benefits package and also the increase in the free fuel allowance. Those changes will benefit many additional households.

In conjunction with that, we now have a tax credit for people who are working. It is not just people in receipt of social welfare payments who will benefit; it is now available to people at work. In past debates on the budget people will have heard me speak about those in receipt of net payments, those in low-paid jobs who are in receipt of gross payments. That conversation is not being held in an open and fair way. Anybody who receives a payment via social welfare is in receipt of a net payment but there are people in low-paid jobs who are in receipt of gross payments and they are less well off than people in receipt of net payments via social protection. The report by the economist Professor Richard Tol was withdrawn by the ESRI and hidden because that conversation was in the public arena but that conversation was apt, and I welcome what I hope will turn out to be a €100 tax credit.

The GDP figure of 3.9% for 2015 can only be welcomed. It is higher for this year. I note that this time last year we were saying that our debt to GDP ratio would peak in 2014 at 121%. That rate had Ireland up there with the largest nations in the world. The figures for this year show a reduction of 10% because our GDP has increased. We have a legal obligation to get that down to 60% within a period of time. A reduction of 10% in one calendar year is as a result of growth. Everything revolves around our economy growing in a sustainable and efficient manner.

We will spend €53.6 billion. We will have a deficit, including our interest payments, of about €5 billion. Those are the figures being projected. However, it is essential that we also impact upon the areas in which there have been deficits. We can see from what happened in that 12-month period that while we live in an economy, we cannot ignore people.

Our health sector has been stretched beyond belief, and I was complicit in the silence about that last year. I do not believe anybody believed we could do what was required in the health structure based on the figures that were given.

I am glad to see an increase in the provision for health.

I also am glad to see the numbers regarding what will be spent on education and the area about which I am most aggrieved in education is the primary sector. It is too late by the time children get into secondary education as they are gone. Many education professionals are aware that children will not have the benefit of the impact that is needed to try to make a difference. Many education professionals are able to see that before the children go to primary school, let alone secondary school and as for third level, for too many children that is not a realistic prospect. The issue I wish to raise is the DEIS status for schools. While I do not wish to get into the political carnage of removing schools from DEIS, there are schools that absolutely require DEIS status far more than do schools that were allocated such status a decade ago. This issue should and must be examined as we are abandoning too many children. In each budget speech I have made here, I have raised the issue of a school in my own locality at Riverchapel. It has experienced massive growth from eight teachers to 24 teachers and operates with serious disadvantage. It is very wrong that the school in question does not get DEIS status. How much time remains to me?