Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I warmly welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. I also warmly welcome budget 2019. The reality is that if we are to be prudent financially in the face of Brexit and the extensive debt we carry in this country, we do not want to face into more borrowing. We had a package of €1.5 billion to divide between tax cuts and spending increases or spending measures, as appropriate. There are many good cases and many sectors needing support, including health, education, and infrastructure. The list goes on. This budget is very considered in the sense that it tries to speak to so many priorities and, in fact, does. It is quite detailed.

I have a short period of time so I will just particularly welcome a number of issues which affect Mayo and the west, for which I have been fighting tirelessly and which have been recognised and begun to be addressed in today's budget. I very much welcome that because everything we decide here in terms of spending has an impact on people on the ground. It is to be hoped that, in all of this, we will see some positive outcomes from the money that is there to spend.

First, I will address the issue of pyrite. Pyrite is a plague on the houses of quite a number of people in north and west Mayo. It is devastating as a house can nearly fall down around a person because of pyrite in the blockwork. I know that, at Cabinet today, a pyrite remediation scheme, which will provide financial assistance to homeowners in Mayo on a phased basis to fix the blockwork in their houses, was approved in principle. I understand the scheme will be developed by the end of December and that money will be provided next year to carry it out on a phased basis. I expect and I understand that what this will mean for Mayo homeowners is that there will be a system of priorities with regard to which houses will be done first and that this will be done not on the basis of some politician asking that this house or that house be done. Clearly, some houses are more degraded than others. Some have been more exposed and the pyrite has reacted in the more exposed coastal areas. Clearly, there is a case to be made for prioritisation. This is a scheme that we can see going on for a number of years. I know that, on the east coast, problems with pyrite heave have been remediated in 1,000 houses with the financial assistance of the existing scheme. I look forward to seeing some positive results on the ground for hard-pressed homeowners. These are homeowners of private houses in Mayo. A person’s home is his or her key asset. These people have nowhere to turn. I also acknowledge that the State did not create the faulty blockwork, so this is a significant intervention by it. It will cost a lot of money but these people have nowhere to turn and are quite desperate. I welcome that.

The next issue is hard-pressed farmers in the west. Many farmers are trying to eke out an existence on marginal lands. We all know of the weather we have been having in recent years and of the fodder crisis. We know that beef farmers are battling low prices in factories and at the mart and are facing cashflow problems, Brexit, and Mercosur. It is very difficult. The bottom line is that they have not been making money. Unless we move to address this, we are going to see many of the younger farmers we want to get into the system saying that they have more options, that they have education and that they are going to do something else. That would be disastrous for our beef sector. I have lobbied the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine very hard on behalf of these farmers. I have been meeting farmers and farming organisations. I welcome the €20 million for the beef environmental efficiency programme pilot scheme. That will help underpin beef production and support the suckler cow farmer. There is also a €23 million top-up for the areas of natural constraint scheme. This will help not just the suckler cow farmer, the beef farmer, but also the sheep farmer because we have an awful lot of poor land in the west and in Mayo.

On infrastructure investment, without a doubt the greatest potential driver of economic growth in the west and north west is Ireland West Airport Knock. I very much welcome the commitment by Government to €8.2 million in funding for pavement overlay of the runway which was announced today. This is what we need to be doing to ensure that there is economic growth in the west. I give credit to the board, the staff and the people of the west who have supported the airport. It came into being against the odds. It was the people's airport, a community airport. It was never a State airport. It is highly efficient and it deserves all the support we can give it. I look forward to more. Today is a good day for the west. I welcome all of that.