Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being here. I should start by saying that I am delighted to see that the Naval Service seagoing allowance has been retained. That is one of the good things in the budget. An awful lot more work needs to be done with respect to our soldiers, sailors and airmen. The Minister of State might consider whether the duty allowance should be made tax-free. That would make a great difference to members of the forces.

In 2008 and 2009, this country was in dire straits. There is no doubt that things had to be done to get the country back on its feet. However, there is absolutely no case for retaining the USC now. The USC should have been scrapped in this budget. There is no need for it. FEMPI should be totally unwound. There is no need for it. How it applies in this particular place is rather peculiar. Legislation was brought in and this brings me to the difficulty ordinary citizens have with legislation brought in during the financial crisis. If we want to change it, we have to go to the High Court because the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and the Department of Finance will do nothing to resolve some of these issues unless they are dragged kicking and screaming to do so.

I will mention some of the things that come under that. Pension abatement was brought in during the financial emergency to stop highly paid civil servants taking their lump sum, retiring and coming straight back to work in the public service. However, there is no justification for pension abatement for a private soldier who has a pension of €20,000 a year and who wants to work for the State. A former soldier could bring valuable experience in the area of security to parts of the State but is caught by the single pension Act or by the abatement.There is no reason for having that.

One of the things there has been a lot of discussion on this afternoon is the housing crisis, the vulture funds and the landlords, etc. I was doing a bit of research on this in recent days. The average income in Romania is under €15,000 but the average rate of homeownership there is 96.1%. Where have we gone wrong? How are we getting it so wrong in this country? There are 500 housing agencies in the country. Local authority housing is all over the place. How come we have got it so wrong? It is very hard to understand. We are pumping money into private industry and private concerns to build houses in order that they can be rented to the State. Recently, in my area, a development that started out as luxury apartments has been bought by a housing agency. Are we paying twice for these units? I am just wondering about where things are going wrong.

I know the Department of public expenditure and reform is soon to go into negotiations with the public service unions. I am afraid the days of one size fitting all no longer work. For example, the terms and conditions of employment of the Garda and the Defence Forces, particularly their pension schemes, are driving their members out the gate in droves. Young officers who we have spent a lot of money training are leaving at the rank of captain because there is no incentive to stay and because the pension scheme is lousy. I know this is slightly in the other half, that is, in the area of public expenditure and reform, but it is rare that we get an opportunity to have a go at a Minister for Finance and lay out the issues on the ground that are seriously affecting people.

One of the areas close to my heart is the deplorable state of cybersecurity and cybersecurity awareness in the country. I wonder if there is a possibility to bring in some sort of tax incentive, particularly for companies, to skill up their employees in this area. We pride ourselves at being a country for foreign direct investment. If we do not get our act together in the cyber space, we will no longer be a country that people will want to come to and invest in.

Those are a few points I wanted to get off my chest. We should undo the FEMPI legislation and repay the public servants for what they did to save this country. We should get rid of the USC. We were promised when it came in that it would not be kept forever. We keep sneaking in these 1% charges and they never go away. We should get rid of these charges and give the public servants back what they contributed. God knows, so many of them, including members of my trade union when I was president of the Teachers Union of Ireland, had engaged in and undertaken large mortgages and suddenly found themselves in a situation where they were on the breadline. Maybe it is time to give them back a little bit of what they invested in the country.