Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I cannot help it if Fianna Fáil members were briefed on that last night. That is another day’s work, however. The bottom line is that the 2013 pension reform has to find its way into the manifestos of parties going forward for election because it is detrimental to the public service and absolutely detrimental to front-line services. I ask for the Minister of State’s assistance in this regard.

As a former educator, I commend the Government on increasing the book scheme right up to leaving certificate. That is really positive stuff from this Government. I want to acknowledge that. I also wish to acknowledge the building schemes.

One of the things I mentioned earlier, during the Department of Public Expenditure, NPD Delivery and Reform debate, was the need to have €1 billion ring-fenced over ten years for cyberawareness and cybersecurity. We have to become the best in the world. We have the expertise in this country to be the best in the world. A man like the Minister of State with his fist on the purse of government can do a lot to influence that.I ask him to do so. I am probably moving into areas that are not directly the Minister of State's responsibility but I am moving into them because he is a Minister of State with a financial portfolio, and he is in a position to do something about that.

Housing is something the Minister of State has a huge interest in. There are military married quarters throughout the country that the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence said he would recommission and get back up and running. I do not know how many of them there are - there are not that many, a couple of hundred - but if we got those married quarters it would take a couple of hundred people off the housing list, put them into married quarters and, perhaps, allow other couples to gain access to it. I would appreciate any assistance the Minister of State could give in that area.

Overall, I would love to bash the budget to pieces but there is not much to bash in it. It is a good budget. Most people will get some benefit from it. I wish the elderly got more out of it and I wish the USC was abolished for people earning less than €40,000 per year, say, and then maybe in a year's time get rid of the rest of it. I am always afraid when we move 1% at a time that what we are doing is keeping the USC alive in case we hit a crisis again and need to increase it. From that point of view, I always think there is a reluctance to get rid of it.

I congratulate the Minister of State. It is a good day for him, a good day to bring a budget to the House, and I congratulate him in his ministry.