Mattie McGrath criticises finance bill as 'green' con job
Mattie McGrath criticised the finance bill, arguing it lacked vision and unfairly shifted costs onto households and small businesses. He called the concrete levy a "farce", said carers were shortchanged, and warned rising fuel and other measures would hurt families and firms.
Concrete levy criticism
He said the concrete levy amounted to showing "the white flag" to quarry owners, accusing the Government of unwillingness to tax big business. He warned even a modest 2,000 square foot house would face at least €4,000 extra under the levy and said the measure wrongly burdens homeowners rather than quarry companies he called the real perpetrators of the mica and pyro crisis.
Carers and business supports
He welcomed increases in carers' thresholds but said the measures fell short of linking carers' payments to other allowances such as food and fuel supports. He criticised changes to the TES scheme and said expanding the number of businesses eligible would dilute already inadequate support, leaving some shops still facing significantly higher monthly costs.
Fuel, benefit-in-kind and commuting
He highlighted fuel prices as a common denominator hurting social work, agriculture and industry, saying roughly half the pump price was tax and noting diesel had risen sharply. He also described cuts to a benefit-in-kind scheme as a "savage" attack on workers who rely on employer-provided travel assistance to get to work.
Green agenda and wider critique
He characterised the finance bill as a green, ink-stained document that prioritises environmental measures like bike reliefs while inconveniencing motorists and failing to help people on housing lists. He accused ministers of announcing schemes without consulting delivery agencies and of shaping the bill to preserve political positions rather than address public hardship.
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I too want to be pleased to speak but in the short time available to me on this finance bill I won't be able to cover a fraction of the issues but I would certainly like to address the concrete levy because this was a farce it was showing the white flag to the real perpetrators of that awful mica and pyro crisis which were the quarries so obviously Minister you have no appetite to touch big business we see that across the country so you decided to put it onto the every house now even a modest 2,000 square foot house would add at least 4,000 to it now you have under pressure you have backtracked and you are bringing it down but you are halving it but it is still the wrong way to go tax the sake of cows and Gwynfall profits of cement rose from PLC who own 99.9% of the quarries if not in name they own them directly and tackled them same Minister with as I said with the carers you have quite those welcome increases in the threshold there there was nothing meaningful done for the carers as regarding getting them linked the carers payment linked to other issues like the food allowance and the petrol payments that are there they do a large amount of work and to keep people out of hospital and now in time we can't get home help so can't get it seriously like that it's certainly had an opportunity to do it as I said also you announced the Cree of Kona at the plough match you have wonderful announcements and you don't even consult uh any of the agencies that are supposed to deliver this and that's why you have blunder and bluff and that's where it goes you also announced money for the TES scheme and I welcome that for businesses but now we see in the finance bill the number of businesses is multiplied that is covering so the amount of money that you have from the scheme will be first of all it was inadequate in the first place because I have shops and businesses I've quoted them here who are still going to be paying 7 000 a month extra for their ESP compared to last year after getting the support from that scheme up to 40% but now if you've multiplied the cake much much bigger the amount of people getting a slice of the cake much bigger sure it's totally inadequate so you're playing with people's figures and giving out in a spin so I'm asking you minister look you'd see that this finance bill lacks any vision any kind of imagination or any kind of understanding why the people are hurting so much out there and it's the biggest con job that's ever perpetrated on the Irish people uh this budget this con job this this budget this finance bill because you're taking the money we see the price of diesel now on the pump has gone up to 202 I saw 207.9 yesterday somewhere in the morning air on sunday or in the midland somewhere and that's half of that is tax and so the more it goes up the more you're ripping in and that's the common denominator the price of fuel whether it be social work or indeed whether it be whether it be uh agriculture or industry is the price of oil and you're doing that and also minister also and it's more true in Russian uh the benefit in kind a good scheme that was there they got people up here in the morning and out to work and travel the roads and I have many of them been on to me excellent people who work so hard who want to work pay the plan and they're turning over business and getting business and turning money for the for the companies and this was a savage uh attack so every aspect of this budget Emma and Ryan's fingerprints are all over it every aspect I see it in the bike scheme now if you get some kind of a cargo bike you're going to get extra reliefs again and everywhere you go you see footpaths being dug up and roads being dug up and been narrowing in to crucify the motorists and make make lanes for for for for bicycles and everything else I'm not happy to that but I'm saying I common sense must prevail so every aspect of this budget is uh uh darland and green ink I'm going to say reading but green ink it's a green green green document and it's not looking after the business people it's not looking after the people in the housing list it's not looking after anyone in that category only just looking after to keep yourselves your bum in that seat there to make sure that the minister Ryan and they won't pull out of government thank you
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