Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A number of people mentioned the help to buy scheme, from which 35,000 people have benefited. There is a clearly a philosophical difference in this Chamber, and in other chambers and between people. I am one of those people who got mortgage interest relief to help me buy my house. I would always like to live in a country where the Government supports people buying their own houses. Some people have a philosophical difficulty with the State not owning every house in the country. There is a different philosophical view on that and it does not have to do with money. I support homeownership and I support the State supporting people to get homeownership.

A number of issues were mentioned relating to extra people getting the GP cards and removing the hospital inpatient charges, as well as on higher education. A number of people spoke towards the end of the debate about the importance of special education. There is a big emphasis on special education facilities in secondary schools because, while we all know there has been a big expansion of such facilities in the primary sector over recent years, now there is an emerging issue at second level.

The question of the €10,000 for post offices was mentioned in the context of its importance in keeping those local facilities fully in operation.

One topic I should have mentioned in my earlier statement - one of the Senators mentioned it early in the debate - is an assessment of gender equality and equality generally in respect of the budget. The new report Budget 2023: Beyond GDP - Quality of Life Assessment refers, among other things, to the distributional impact of the main tax and welfare measures in the budget. The report shows that that impact is strongly progressive and that households in the lowest income deciles will benefit the most from the budgetary measures introduced over the two periods detailed in the report. That continues the trend of progressive budgets that was found also in the Department's analysis of budget 2022.

I thank all Senators for their time and all their contributions. It is good that we had a positive, healthy exchange. As I said, my officials and I will bring all the points raised back to the two relevant Ministers for consideration in respect of the finance Bill and the social welfare Bill, which will come before this House in due course.