Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State and I also welcome the budget announced yesterday. There was €5.2 billion for housing and 25,000 new homes. The €130 million for the housing adaption grant and €140 million for retrofitting of social housing are really welcome. On the expansion of the living cities initiative, it is something we have had in Limerick for some years and it has been a really positive scheme. I would love to see more people avail of it. There was a lot of red tape around it in terms of things like fire escapes and different things which are really important but we need to look at the red tape, which was curtailing people from using it. The VAT cut for residential apartments was described as elitist and a policy where we were looking after our friends but if we do not build apartments, people will not have housing. That is the fact. We need to do something to incentivise people to build them. On farm tax relief, there is €2.3 billion, including for TB eradication and tillage. Farm tax relief to young farmers is very positive because we need to encourage people to get involved.

The justice budget is €6.2 billion, an increase of €200 million. We will see 1,000 more gardaí which I hope will lead to more feet on the street. In the previous allocation we received ten gardaí and we received a further ten and that has increased. People are starting to comment on seeing gardaí on the streets, which is really important. The 200 additional civilian staff will also relieve gardaí of desk duties to get them out on the street. That is to be welcomed. There is also €90 million for overtime, which will help put gardaí on the street. There is €11.5 million for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. We have ADAPT House and Thomond House, which do wonderful work, and there are many other place around the country that do similar. I really welcome the increase in money for them.

On childcare, there is €64 million for childcare places and an increase of 35,000 extra children. It is really to be welcomed but I agree with Senator Rabbitte. We would love to know when exactly it will start. I note the increase in medical and nursing training with 1,100 extra places. On the health budget, I welcome there will be 300 extra people for mental health services and the €8.9 million for cancer care. The number of people diagnosed with cancer is going up every year so the increase there is important. The increase in medical places at third level is really important too. As well as the doctors and nurses coming from other countries it is also good to have our own homegrown doctors. Many of them are walking into jobs when they qualify.

There are many more issues and I have only a limited time. I welcome the money for postmasters to keep many of our small rural post offices open. I welcome the extra 2,000 people who will be eligible for the basic income for the arts scheme. There is also investment in sports. They were talking about elite sports as well as football and about elite athletes. There is something that should also be looked at, which I have previously raised, namely the referees who are also elite sportspeople. They get no tax relief whereas those playing on the pitch do. All the referees were probably elite athletes at one stage too. It needs to be looked at. There is only a small handful of people who could be brought into this category and it would not have a huge impact on the budget.

I firmly support the 9% VAT rate cut. I know it has been said that we are supporting takeaway places but a lot of those places employ 3,000 and 4,000 people.That is nothing to be sneezed at. We cannot give it to one and not to the other. The 9% VAT rate has to be across the board for all businesses, especially small businesses. Many of those businesses are small.