Joe Conway (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to see my fellow midlander, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, here again. He is welcome back.

Senator Casey said that the measures taken recently were evidence of "steady considered governing." I accept an awful lot of that because, when taken into the panoply of interventions that are used across Europe, the interventions the Government has made amounts to €750 million and per capita they are as generous as anywhere in the OECD countries. That is to be welcomed. However, there are 300,000 people in arrears with their energy bills. According to data from the charity, ALONE, approximately 40% of older people have reported that they tolerate the cold to save on heating. If that is the case, it is a poor story to be telling in a country that is alleged to be one of the wealthiest in the world.

The first thing that we should do is look at the campus here in Leinster House. Today, I welcomed a couple of visitors and they came into the hall. While I waited for them to get their badges, I happened to lean casually on the radiator perch in the hall to find that it was glowing hot. It is late afternoon and the temperature outside is 16°C. This morning, the temperature was easily that and was probably more. Why on earth have we got central heating on in this campus at this time of year? It defies description. I would not think there is a sensible household in the country that is burning oil, or whatever is burned here, to have the place heated. We should start looking at our own campus and our own backyard.

The greatest practical measure we could introduce nationally to save on expensive imports of oil would be, for the next few months until, heaven help us, this géarchéim sa Mheánoirthear or emergency in the Middle East, is to ask the Government to impose a temporary restriction of an 80 km/h speed limit nationally. We would save a fortune on imported oil and gas that way.

Sometimes we exaggerate the poverty and penury that exist in this State. Back in the 1980s and 1990s I was the sole earner as a lowly-paid primary schoolteacher and we had three kids. We got no State handouts other than the children's allowance, which was meagre enough at the time. We got no SUSI grants. We did that because we made the conscious decision that one of the parents would stay at home and bring up the kids. That decision took all this business of childcare out of it. Essentially, what we were doing was sentencing ourselves to a life of penury then but I rejoice that the investment paid off so well in the fact that we have brought up kids who are contributing hugely to the economy and are a credit to themselves and, I hope, are a credit to their parents. That was done with remarkable effort. There was no such thing as entertainment for a lot of families then. People lived inside. The television was the only entertainment. As for getting grants for laptops, laptops were unheard of and if they were, we would not be getting them. That sort of stuff did not exist at all. Even the most minuscule level of income, if people were working in the public service, rendered them ineligible for a SUSI or as it was then, a county council grant.

When we talk about measures that we can take to battle these outrageous happenings in the Middle East and Ukraine, we have to be prudent and look at our own finances because, as a country, we cannot continue to have a knee-jerk response with bailouts and dole outs. They are very necessary at the moment but sooner or later, the pot of money will run dry and nobody will thank us, as two Legislatures here, if we responded in a populist way slinging money at the problems that occur. We have to take practical measures. They do not cost money in the first place but generate a big saving. My suggestion of a reduced national speed limit, as they say nowadays in that awful cliché, has to be a no-brainer.

I applaud the level of response by the Government. It has been generous. I applaud it with a very strongly flashing amber light because I am very worried about a constant repetition of intervention and paying off interest groups. There was a trade unionist in the 1980s called Sid Weighell who was the head of the National Union of Railwaymen and he used to say that people got money because of the “philosophy of the pig trough - those with the biggest snouts get the biggest share". We have to watch the interest groups who cry the loudest and look after the purse that belongs to the average Joe.