Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome to the Chamber to discuss the budget today. I thank the Minister of State and the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Michael McGrath, for their stewardship of our economy throughout the pandemic and for making sure that supports for families and businesses were put in place.

I want to concentrate on the measures in the areas in the Department for which I am the spokesperson, which are the areas of arts, media, tourism and sport, rather than across the budget because Members have already spoken on those issues.

Tourism has been devastated through the pandemic and it probably will take at least until 2024 to recover. I welcome the business continuity supports of €50 million, as well as the €39 million for tourism promotion and product development to help the industry to recover and grow in a sustainable way. I welcome the extension of the VAT rate in hospitality until August 2022, which was brought in previously. I feel, however, that we need to extend this for longer. This is a big mistake we have made here. It was shown previously back in 2009 and 2010 that when we extended that low VAT rate for a number of years, it helped to reboot our economy and brought us up to a situation where we had nearly 300,000 working in tourism. This is one thing we have missed in this budget.

The projections for international tourism in 2022 are that Ireland will be down at least 30%. This is based on advance bookings. I welcome the aviation fund that will help to restore the connectivity from key markets, which is lacking at present and was highlighted by Members with the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, just a few weeks ago.

As for the bus and coach industry, bar I had missed it in the booklet, that industry is not capable of claiming back VAT on diesel for their vehicles. This is the industry that will ferry the tourists around Ireland when they do come. The reality is that the bus companies in Northern Ireland are capable of claiming that tax back but our bus companies are not and are at a distinct disadvantage with regard to tendering for work. I ask that this measure be looked at again.

On the arts, the decision to maintain the funding of €130 million for the Arts Council is significant. This will help to promote and develop Ireland's world-class artistic and creative strengths. I recently met Mona Considine, the artistic director of the Backstage Theatre, and with a number of other people involved in the arts industry in Longford. They highlighted to me - and I brought it to the floor in the Chamber - that this funding should be maintained.They highlighted that, thanks to the funding, a significant amount of work took place during the pandemic, for example, workshops, in order to have material ready for the stage for when crowds were able to return to their venues. They also highlighted the basic income guarantee scheme. As such, I welcome the €25 million that is being allocated towards that as well as the €25 million in supports for the live entertainment industry.

Recently, Fine Gael made a submission to the Future of Media Commission. One of our core proposals was the replacement of the television licence with a public services media charge, which would increase the funding available to the media industry by between €50 million and €70 million. That funding would also be available to all regional newspapers, regional radio stations, community radio stations and so on instead of 93% of it just going to RTÉ. I welcome the funding that has been put in place for the establishment of the media commission, which has an important role to play, particularly in light of the online safety and media regulation Bill, which will be published in the coming months.

I am disappointed with the additional funding that has been allocated to sport. There have already been applications totalling nearly €200 million to the sports capital programme this year, yet it only has a €40 million budget and the additional funding to be put in place will only be €6.6 million. A significant number of sporting clubs throughout the country will be disappointed and their projects will not be funded. We are allocating millions of euro to Sport Ireland's high-performance units, yet we will not even be sending representatives from it to the boxing world championship. This needs to be examined.

Overall, it is a good budget for everyone and I wished to highlight a number of its specifics, particularly those relating to the areas for which I am spokesperson.