Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I used to say that when the price reached €5 I would give them up but I persevered. Another 40 cent on a packet of 20 bringing it up to €10 is heavy duty in real terms. If I was one of those who pay for most things, the "squeezed middle" Ireland, I would be very disappointed with this budget. I could be proved wrong. Those who are just above the social welfare threshold, who are in the €35,000 to €50,000 income bracket, will not benefit at all when the additional charges are taken into account. Many of them are families with two people at work. I am very surprised that there is no child care tax credit. I welcome the €5 increase in child benefit but this Government reduced it by €10 two years ago and by more from the third and subsequent children.

It is true that the number of teachers and special needs assistants will be increased but there is no reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio. The increase may only just keep up with the demand created by an increased population. I recently met with the Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO, and other teachers’ organisations and know they will be disappointed that there has been no move to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio.

The budget shows our priorities. The €9 increase in the living alone allowance is welcome but has to be seen in the context of the savage, disproportionate cuts this Government imposed on the elderly, senior citizens and those dependent on State pensions and household benefits. The household benefits package has been filleted over the past two years. Anything that goes back into it is welcome.

Those people should not have been targeted in the first place. I hope that when the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protect brings in the social welfare and pensions Bill, she will look at reversing probably the worst cut the Government made which was the 30% decrease to the respite care grant. That just about got through this House two years ago. They are the types of items for which we should be looking. There are good things in this budget but I raise the areas about which I have concerns. I am not in any way saying the whole package should be discarded.

The people carrying the heaviest debt burden are generally younger families who bought their houses prior to 2009. If the Government wants to target its approach at them, it should do what we proposed and increase mortgage interest relief. We proposed increasing it to 40% this year and then increasing it further. Many of those people are on high variable rate mortgages and high levels of debt and many also have children. There is no tax credit for anyone whose children are in child care, where both partners work, have large mortgages and face the high cost of child care. The increase in child benefit of €5 per month will not do much. It is approximately €25 to €30 per hour to have one's child looked after in a reputable Montessori school or crèche.

I am also surprised - perhaps this will come out in the health budget - that the Government has not seen fit to reduce the prescription charge, which it increased five times and which the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Reilly, promised to abolish. It has increased from 50 cent to €2.50 per item, which is a substantial cost. I would have thought that if the Government was targeting people who are sick, elderly and those in need, that is something that could have been done as well as reducing the threshold for the drugs payment scheme from €144 per month, to which this Government increased it, to maybe €120 per month.

The Government could have targeted the people who have suffered instead of just reducing the top rate of tax. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, said he would offset that by increasing the USC for those earning above €70,000. That is fine but would it not have been fairer to reinstate the PRSI exemption of €264 per year? If one looks at the examples given in the budget document the Minister, Deputy Noonan, presented, one will see the reduction in the USC liability for people, which is welcome because it is a reduction. However, for a couple earning €59,300 per annum, it falls far short of the €264 the Government took from them last year. If the Minister reinstated the PRSI exemption of €264, people on €20,000 would benefit from that a lot more than people on €200,000. I suppose it is about choices and fairness.

I was particularly interested in the paltry reference to mental health services in the document presented by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. There is one paragraph between both documents of approximately 400 pages and it does not give any breakdown. I have major concerns about this area, although there may be more detail, which I would welcome. If one looks at the mental health services and at early intervention, which at least is mentioned, there are no early intervention teams in Dublin for children. I hope there is some recognition that we need an extra €20 million to clear these waiting lists. I have not seen it yet, although it is early in the day.

On the education side, there is no provision for guidance counselling, which was removed by this Government. Again, that falls into the whole mental heath area and entails tackling, in particular, the scourge of suicide.

All Governments have to make a decision on whether a budget is about numbers and the economy or about society. It should be about the economy but it should also be about the type of society we want to build.

We have missed an opportunity to alleviate the pressure on those who have borne it most. I ask the Minister of State to take on board the few points I have made, which will be debated in more detail in the run-up to the finance and social welfare Bills.