Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Civil Engagement Group for tabling this important motion. The Government is taking it very seriously as well because there is no amendment to it. Everybody agrees that we have to do everything we can to take everybody out of poverty. Anybody who is in poverty should be taken out of it if at all possible. When one listens to the speakers on poverty, what can cause it and what brings people into it, one can see this country has made great strides.

Over the past 20 years or so, there has never been better sports facilities. There has never been more money put into sports facilities throughout the length and breadth of the country, whether in cities or rural areas. There is more for young people to do than ever before. One wonders in many cases why there is so much poverty. There have never been more people at work in the country. We have the best social welfare system in the world - there is no doubt about that. If one goes to any European country, America or any place one wants, there is no country that has a better social welfare system than we have and yet we have many people who are on the bread line and many people who are living in poverty.

This budget was probably the greatest budget ever delivered in the history of this State. There are very few people who did not get something out of this budget. The Government was very wise in some of the decisions that it made on increasing social welfare payments, as well as paying one-off payments, so that there is not a recurring cost to the Exchequer and provision does not have to be made in the long term.

When one goes through all of those issues, one would wonder where we go. As rightly said by the previous speakers, housing and education are a huge drain on the taxpayer. It is very difficult for young people, in particular, to get their foot on the housing ladder. Housing has never been as expensive or as scarce than it is at this time. We have had some perfect crashes in the past ten or 12 years, with the banks failing and everybody demonising builders and developers, which has led to a scarcity of houses. When one considers that we were building 90,000 houses a year and now we are building 20,000 houses plus, that is an enormous difference. We have never had such a large population. We have the largest population since the Famine. When one joins all of those things together, one can easily see why there is so much pressure on the housing sector. The Government has to find ways of building houses more quickly and getting more houses onto the market, whether that is through subsidies, the planning laws or a combination of a number of things. It has to be done.

The State and taxpayers are paying a huge price in relation to trying to get people accommodated. There is no house now that does not have a contribution made to it by the taxpayer. The taxpayer is paying enormous amounts of money through various schemes to help people and it has a knock-on effect.That has increased the price of houses. As I have said in this House on a number of occasions, we have to look at taxation in regard to housing.

Many measures were introduced in the budget and all of those are helping people to come out of poverty and helping them in many other ways. They are all welcome. We have never had more people at work, some 2.51 million, which is the highest ever. I welcome the motion from the Civil Engagement Group. We have to find ways to look at energy and at intergenerational poverty, and whether that is through setting up a new agency to replace the existing one, it is a matter the Government should look at seriously. We all want to see people come out of poverty. The Government has done a considerable amount in the last budget and I thank the Minister of State in that regard.