Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Tá sé an-suimiúil nach raibh a dhóthain ama ag an Aire Stáit dul tríd gach rud. Tá an buiséad chomh maith sin.

This is such a big and long budget, and so much money is being given out for many things, that the Minister of State ran out of time. You never get everything you want but that is the way it is in life in general. It is a part of being in a coalition government. It is a part of being here at this time when we face so many different challenges. I do, however, think that the budget has made a good attempt to figure out a lot of the challenges we face. It is good to see the investment in water, which is something I have been harping on about for the past four years. If we do not invest in water, we cannot build houses. It is incredible to see €750 million being given to Irish Water in order to get the water treatment and wastewater treatment plants that we need. We do not have the infrastructure.

That leads me to a great thing for which the Green Party had to fight, namely the land hoarding tax.That is based on land zoned for building that already has the services we need. It is great that we got that in the budget too. It is something for which my colleagues in the party, Steven Matthews and Roderic O'Gorman, fought hard. It is bad enough not having services, but when we have serviced land and we cannot build houses on it because people are hoarding land, we have to ask why. It is good we got that across the line.

It is also good to see that we are now investing in the grid. The grid definitely needs investment because people who are producing solar energy are struggling to put it onto the grid or to get paid for it because the grid is not fit for purpose. It is great to see the investment in that as well. On the housing side of things, it is good that we are seeing the retrofit programme increase and that we are continuing to retrofit more social houses for free. We all know we need an increased number of gardaí. It is great to see more special education teachers and SNAs because there seems to be a huge increase in demand for supports for children with diagnoses of special needs. The earlier we can give them such supports, the better, especially in the area of autism. I do not want to get upset talking about that because it is such a huge issue. Hopefully, this budget moves in some way towards sorting those really serious problems for the parents who struggle daily.

The €100 million for the adaptive home grant is massive for lots of older people who live in houses that are no longer fit for purpose, or people with disabilities who sometimes might feel they have to move to a nursing home when they do not want to. I know a lot of old people want to stay in their homes as long as they can, so it is great we are investing in that. Personally, I think the free hormone replacement therapy, HRT, is amazing. I have never tried it but you never know, I might do so now that it is free because it is costly. A lot of women have said to me it is unfair they have to pay so much money for it. That is great. I might have to chance that myself and all the men here would probably be delighted if I did. It is great we are taking women seriously with the free HRT. Myself, Senator Pauline O'Reilly and others have been fighting for that for a long time.

As a single parent, the free books up to leaving cert would have been amazing because the financial stress in September is mental. The older they get, as they progress from primary to secondary, the more it costs. That is a massive relief for lots of parents come September. The increase in sports funding is brilliant, especially the 10% increase for Sport Ireland based on the amazing work our athletes did at the Olympic Games. There is lots of time and we could go on forever because there are lots of good things.

I have to say I am sad we did not do more for small businesses. We did not do well in enterprise, trade and employment. We have failed small businesses and 70% of our jobs come from them. I did not secure the rate rebate I was looking for. We secured a €4,000 grant to help them with energy costs but they have had so many other hits that I thought there would have been more in the budget for small businesses. I am sorry we did not do that but I hope they avail of the supports that are there for small businesses as much as they can.

We have not seen gardaí on the street for a long time so if we are promised another 1,000 gardaí, I hope we see a few of them in Clare. They are badly needed. I never thought I would say we need more gardaí but eyes on the street are what we need. I am also disappointed there is no real clarity on upstairs living. There is a mention of Croí Cónaithe for upstairs living but we must tackle how we make upstairs living safe with regard to fire safety because we are expecting old businesses to use modern fire safety restrictions, which does not work. That is why there are so many people not living upstairs in houses.

It is a good budget overall. We did not get everything we wanted but I like to see the green fingerprints over everything. The triple boost to parents when their baby is born is a big help as well. I thank the Minister of State for his great work on the roll-out of rural broadband. That has made a massive difference and we now see further investment in the budget as well. People might give out about the bottles and cans scheme because people have to give out about something sometimes, but overall it is winning. It is an inconvenience for me. I always recycled and people say they always recycled, but it has reduced litter and those involved with Tidy Towns are really happy. I cannot wait to see more machines rolled out. As a result of the funding provided in this budget, we will see those machines go to lots of places rather than just the big supermarkets. I look forward to that. I thank the Minister of State personally for the work he has done to date.