Michael Fitzmaurice criticises budget, warns rural workers worse off

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the budget. First of all, the increase for pensioners and people with disabilities, you welcome that. Probably would need more, to be quite frank about it, but at least you have to acknowledge it anyhow. I welcome the increase in the carers threshold, but the ideal scenario is that if someone packs up a job or whatever, regardless of what their partner is earning or has, if they are minding someone, it saves the state a lot of money. I think that needs to be acknowledged throughout this country, the amount of work that is done. It is a step in the right direction, with the new thresholds of 1,000 and 2,000, but if there are many people that go to their fathers or mothers or loved ones to help them out, and basically give up their life to look after somebody, I think that needs to be recognised. In relation to agriculture, I think it is a disappointing budget for agriculture. Yes, there is money to be, and it is needed. Other than that, the tillage that Minister McGonagall gave last year, there will be that and a small bit with it. Other than that, there are none of the schemes getting any increase. I would question, where is the €300 cow that we were hearing in a programme for government? Where is it gone, or is the cow gone, or what has happened? I think that was badly needed. The one thing in the line of housing, yes, there is a lot of money there for housing, in fairness. The sad part of that budget, when you read the document, affordable housing was never mentioned. Do we say that people that are working that are on £25,000, or sorry, £35,000, £40,000, because we all have differed in the areas in Honourable Scamera, if you go over £30,000, you are not eligible for housing under social housing. But what about affordable housing? What about people, like if you were getting £35,000 or £40,000, there isn't the hope of buying a house in a lot of areas, and I think we have to look at that. But I do welcome the budget for housing. I think the problem is, and I know there is a bill in here at the moment, to try and make a road map to get through some of the planning issues, because while there might be money there, it is harder to spend it because of the blocks that are put in place, and I think that we have to drive them out of the way, to be honest about it. It does them out of the way, because it cannot go on, what is going on with judicial reviews and all this crack constantly, blocking progress. Irish Water's budget is £1.4 billion. That is their overall budget. It will do some work, but if you are trying to build the numbers of houses that have been talked about, in my opinion, if you have road sewers and water, you are going nowhere. That budget is spendable, and in my opinion, you would want more upfront for a few years to try and catch up with enough of the area to make sure that people are left in a situation that you can build houses, because that is a major problem. I note that on the infrastructure side, the N5 is on it again. This is, I think, the third budget is on it. There is a road in Cork. I want to see the likes of the N20 done. I want to see the road from Milltown heading to Sligo and Donegal. That needs to be done. You need the road from Kells heading to Monaghan and that sorted. I do welcome our monies for infrastructure for trains and all of that, because the Western Rail Corridor, as many of you talked about, and I think, you know, problems as well need to be sorted out. I know between the Lass's constituency and Galway, there was problems with flooding, and the likes of that needs sorting out. But the most difficult part I found of this budget is that the people, as a former teacher said, Mr Varadkar said, people that get up early in the morning and go to work. Well, I saw a figure on the paper that there were €70 a week worse off to go to work. Now that is a damnable situation, and in my opinion, they are more worse off than that. For the simple reason, if you are living in rural Ireland and you have two cares, the carbon tax will hit you about €170 to €200 a year extra. If you look between heating your house and driving two cares, because while there is public transport and local links here and there, there is not, say, for people to the Deputy Grealish's or Minister Grealish's, to Galway City, if you are from my neck of the woods, you have to drive to Galway. It is not there. There is no point in saying it is. People coming at different times or working at different times. And if they have a youngster going to college, that youngster, I don't like it. I just find it hard to know how someone can say that when you pay more, we have actually looked after you. Because if you are going to college, it is going to be €500 more this year than last year. And I know that there was an emergency measure. I understand that, but I would have gone the extra £46 million, I think is what, £92 million altogether is what the whole thing cost last year. I would have gone the £46 million to try and make sure that them people, because bear in mind one thing, the people that are paying the fees are people that are going to work on every morning. That is it. There is no point in saying they are not, because you would be on £40,000, £50,000, £60,000 and they are going to pay that extra bit. So I welcome, as I said earlier in the tillage debate, the piece for the money that Mr McAnulagh gave last year and a few quid with it. But we need to make sure we look after the tillage sector. And in education, tonight I have the phone there, I have taken a few calls, SNAs, and while I appreciate there is more of a budget for SNAs, that is great. But there are schools at this minute in time that are in trouble for SNAs, and we need to make sure that we address that. Look, we are where we are, and I know that we have to watch stormy waters coming, and I know that there are other bodies that say that we are going a bit beyond our means. I understand all that. But you have got to make sure that people that are bringing in the taxes, that they are looked after as well. And as I said earlier, in the budget, when you look at it, affordable housing is not mentioned in that speech that day. I think that is an awful reflection. It is not all about social housing. It should be about, I would say 50-50, in my opinion, that it should be. Because if we do not look after, be it the nurses and the guards and the frontline workers, and as well as that, people that are working in, be it factories or whatever, in any industry, you know, that is what pays the bills to run a country, on top of the bigger companies. So, I am going to leave it at that, Les Cancord, and I thank you. Thank you.