Mattie McGrath criticises budget and defends dance schools

Good morning, according to the latest figures, Minister, first of all, can I say about the budget, it's like the cure's egg, it's good in spots, and there's a lot of bad spots as well, but according to the latest figures, of course, over 30 years, our Irish mortgage holders are paying their mortgages 300,000, will pay 80,000 more than our European counterparts, why is that? I mean, this budget has been crippling for ordinary people, Nadine Aesta, they're old people, got nothing, they didn't even get the fiver on the pension, and our ordinary working man, Agus Managh, Gubber, Goni, the words of the Tanaiste, they get up in the morning early, but they've been ignored, and ignored, the carbon tax then, is going to penalise all those people, especially in rural Ireland, and they're going to pay for money, pay for the so-called just transition, to support Lewis, and Dart, and other projects here in Dublin, and a few limited projects throughout the country, the N24 project in Tipperary wasn't even mentioned, and it's badly, badly needed to have connectivity, from the west coast of Ireland, right along to Limerick, Clare, Limerick, and indeed Tipperary, Waterford, on to Ross Lair, and that's needed, now with Brexit coming, especially, it's badly, badly needed, and then towns like Tipperary town, they desperately need a ring road, and a relief road there, we now have consultants appointed to look at the project again, it was designed, and approved before, I went to, it didn't go to CPO, but I went to notice to treat, and the routes were selected, and why have we consultants appointed again, it's consultants for everything, if you want to sneeze now, you have to appoint consultants, and many of the projects that are announced, in the budget, will be eaten up, by problems of consultants, and engagements with issues like that, and we don't get the quid pro quo, and the books in the pocket, many of the issues to support the arts, and other industries that have been announced, and welcome money, yes definitely, but will it percolate down into the pockets, into the homes of the entertainers, the musicians, the dancers, the light engineers, the sound engineers, and indeed all those groupie that are out there, our dance schools, I have a letter here, from a dance school, and no I haven't, it's from, it's from Siobhan, it's there, it's from the organiser, the vice president of the dance school association, to know why, in God's name, I drink your school, do not force, the clothes, the second time they're closed again, we thankfully we have up to 30 children in classrooms, going back to schools, I spoke to the principal today, of Cormoran College, and he's 500 students, doing an excellent job down to Kevin Langton, with his students, and his board of management, and not a ward of infection, thankfully to God, and then he's, what I see this morning, a department inspector coming in, and telling the one to come in, he's letting nobody in, only the pupils, we don't need inspections for those kind of general inspections at the moment, we trust the board of management, the principals, and the teaching staff, so can I say to you, the dance schools are closed, they shouldn't be closed, they've been victimised, and like I have them, because in many cases they might have only 12 or 15 in a much bigger setting than a classroom, and they have community halls, like one of my own villages, and many many more, so look, there's a lot of inequities and unfairness, and will this money, it'll come from the arts committee meeting, and I'm not satisfied that the arts money, they got 130 million, and great, and the whole artistic community must be supported, but who's going to support the man in the van, with his own one-man show, or two-man show, or a woman show, going out to do cabaret, going out to do the gigs, going out to do a van, to go into the nursing homes, and indeed into the daycare centres, and everything else, they are a vital part of our economy, as well as the taxi drivers, and the over-66ers have got nothing, we didn't get a fiver, they got nothing in the pandemic either, nothing, because of the so-called pension that they had, all they wanted was to be brought up to the 350 level, and that 350 payment must be restored for those group of self-implied people, entertainers, van drivers, milkmen, ready-mix trucks, you name it, the delivery trucks, and all those taxi men, and down our area, the hackney drivers, don't have taxis, so we need to support those people, because they're not being supported, they didn't even get the crumbs from the table, as I said, all they wanted was to put payments, was to get the balance between their pension, of 200 odd, up to 350. The 350 must be restored, and it must be given back to these people, because they have dignity, they have pride in their work, they're not allowed to work, the government pulled their outcome underneath them, but the dance schools have been closed down twice, and you explain to me, Minister, or somebody explain to me, from left with anybody else, why a dance school cannot operate, as I said, with the same number of students that can be in a prefab, a small pokey prefab international schools are managing them there, which we should have stopped procuring them, not building them, renting them years ago. Again, I said yesterday, why can we not, or why will we not go to the ECB, as I quoted a figure there at the bottom, over three years of differential for a mortgage, there's 80,000 that the Irish people will pay more than their counterparts, 80,000, that is black harding, we can get money at low interest rates from the ECB, why don't we borrow it, why don't we deal with the banks, we've allowed the moratorium to be lifted for the banks, so now, I spoke to a couple of family last Saturday in my area, where they have received a letter from the sheriff for repossession of their home, because of a bank from the bank, straight away, there's 60 or 70 million in the South Tipperary District Court for places like that, it's methodless, it's relentless, and it's disgusting, as I said, the ECB rate is out there for all of us, as I said last night, I think that Germany borrowed, and borrowed, you know, after the World War, the Second World War, and they're still paying it back, we need long-term loans like that, we need the likes of TK, the former late TK Petergill, back inside in finance, to be a bit of imagination, and a bit of experimentation, not experimentation, like you'll see, it's not all accountants, and mind the house, and mind the money, we must be here, and support our people, we must give our people hope, and we must give them some bit of support, and solace, that they can go back to being self-implied, they can go back to their jobs, they can go back to their homes, look after their wives and families, and not be depending on the state, but we need a bite over, and we need to avail of this low-cost finance, in order to support our communities, with the carbon tax, then, it's penalising rural people to pay for facilities in Dublin under just transition, to hell with the rest of the country, I'm off of carbon tax, but I don't agree with the legislation passed last night, though, we can't have a debate on carbon tax, it's now fixed, then, to become 100 euro a tonne by 2030, find, have a just transition, and deal with it here, the impacts on the housewife, the impacts on the people in the cottages, the impacts on the farmer, the impacts on the bus drivers, the self-implied people, the taxi drivers, everybody just goes to work, the students have to travel, there's no public transport, so, it's a blackguarding of people, just transition, it's not very just for the people who have to pay the piper, and then we see all the announcements for public transport, more and more are rolled out here, in the capital city, by the RT, go to Machagut.