Joe Conway (Independent)

I am of an age, unusually in the Chamber today, that I sat in a family huddle around the wireless and listened to the early broadcasts of the budget on Radio Éireann. It has been a spectator sport for me ever since those early days. I am always struck by how the budget is presented. It is sort of a spectator sport in many ways because proponents of the Government laud it and opponents of the Government execrate it. As in many things in life, the truth lies somewhere in between. That is how I view the budget presented yesterday. As somebody once said, it is a bit like Brighton Pier - it is good insofar as it goes but it is a very poor way of getting to France. There are many measures in the budget I am pleased with. I will enumerate some of them. Táim an-sásta leis an méid tacaíochta atá tugtha don Ghaeilge. Cuirim fáilte roimhe sin ach nílim iomlán sásta leis. Tá i bhfad níos mó gur féidir a dhéanamh ar an gcás sin.

I am pleased to see the increase in the capitation grant to primary schools. The Waterford city INTO branch secretary emailed me this morning and said it is a step in the right direction, whereas I look back at the funding for primary education when I was serving in the trenches and the support in capitation was almost at Third World levels. The capitation grant increase in the past 20 years has been significant. Yesterday's increase is significant but do not forget we are operating off a very low base with primary school education supported hugely by parental efforts, scrabbling and scratching around in the local pennies to try to make a fist of the service. It is good to see that increase. I am delighted to see the increase in Garda recruitment and additional recruitment in the Defence Forces but, and this is a significant "but", psychologists talk about the human propensity to self-delude. Governments are guilty of that, as is most of humanity. When talking about Garda and Defence Forces recruitment, the Government is self-deluding. That is not the crux of the problem. We can recruit but the problem is retention. Unless measures are taken to pay these people and support them in their work, retention will mean it is all saothar in aisce. It is labour in vain because the people in whom we will invest so much money in recruiting will be gone within a few years and we will be back in the same trench again.

On postmasters, I am delighted to see money is available to help out a quintessential part of the local infrastructure in rural Ireland, which is welcome. Tá an t-am ag scaradh uaim anois. In line with Senator Boyhan, I have reservations about how existing levels of service are reported and projected in the budget. It is back to the human ability to self-delude. It gives me cause for concern about the budget that we do not seem to be able to conquer our delusion that our population is ageing rapidly and there are going to be significant demands on the budget. The projected existing levels of service have not really been addressed. There will be huge problems for budgets in the next ten years. Nobody is addressing the elephant in the room of our ageing population. I supported far more budgets in my 21 years in local government that I voted against. If I was to be asked to go through a division lobby in respect of this budget, I would probably pinch my nose and vote "Tá". All in all, some good work has been done but there is a heck of a lot more to do.