Deputy Madeline Taylor-Quinn moved the Adjournment. She is not here. Deputy Chris Flood.
Financial Resolutions, 1988. - Financial Resolution No. 4: General (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance.
—(Minister for Finance)
I would like to take this opportunity to compliment many of the previous contributors to this debate on the manner in which they put forward their views on the 1988 budget which we are now discussing. Sometimes I feel it is a pity that the public cannot hear and see Members from all sides of the House as they put forward their views on important matters from time to time in Dáil Éireann. In March 1987 when we were debating this Administration's first budget I could not have imagined the very considerable progress this country was about to make during the remainder of 1987, taking it through to our present deliberations. In the Programme for National Recovery published by Fianna Fáil for the 1987 general election the Taoiseach said in his introduction:
The great benefit that can come from this general election is the restoration of confidence by the people in their future, the restoration of a belief that the economy can be restored by better management; that more employment can be provided and the burden of taxation can be reduced.
Despite severe international economic difficulties in 1987, our economy performed exceptionally well. We know that in 1987, our economy grew by 3 per cent. This was a much better performance than many of us thought possible. Manufacturing output increased by 9.3 per cent in the first nine months of 1987 as compared with the first nine months of 1986. This increase in manufacturing output clearly reflected itself in exports which in the first 11 months of 1987 increased in volume terms by 18 per cent as compared with the first 11 months of 1986. In a recent business poll carried out by Irish Marketing Services for the magazine Business and Finance published on 4 February 1988, 90 per cent of the chief executives of Irish industry, then polled, felt that this was a good budget. I understand that this type of business support is unprecedented. The business community, therefore, have clearly stated their confidence in the broad thrust of the Government's economic and fiscal policy as enunciated by the Taoiseach and his Ministers since coming to office in 1987.
I believe also that 1988 can be a year of very substantial achievement in our economic development when inflation is expected to fall again to between 1½ per cent and 2 per cent. We can also look forward with some confidence to a further lowering of interest rates and lower energy costs. These very important developments, together with Fianna Fáil's prudent and careful management of our public finances, should further enhance our manufacturing export opportunities. A well organised and professionally managed economy will help to ensure that our goods and services exported will be more competitive. It is clear that this economy will never die on its export performance. This is one of the few means whereby the nation's wealth can be increased, thereby presenting an opportunity for the creation of real, lasting and sustainable jobs.
I want to congratulate the Minister for Finance on his outstanding performance to date. I want also to congratulate him for the manner in which he drafted and presented the 1988 budget. He has shown that it is possible for a Government, no matter how difficult times may be, to set financial targets and to achieve them. The 1987 current budget deficit at £1,180 million was £20 million inside target and Exchequer borrowing has been shown to have been £72 million inside target. This is an outstanding achievement by the Government. In his budget address on 27 January last the Minister indicated that the current deficit, in terms of gross national product, of 6.8 per cent was the lowest since 1980 and that Exchequer borrowing of 10.3 per cent was the lowest since 1977. I should like to refer to some of the measures introduced in the 1988 budget.
I welcome especially the Government's decision to introduce a package of special measures for the tourist industry by allocating a sum of £4 million for this purpose. Following the Government's very successful efforts to boost tourism in 1987, the renewed commitment to the tourist industry will undoubtedly benefit the national economy. We need to take a much closer look at what this country can offer the visitor as opposed to what we cannot offer with any degree of certainty. Unfortunately, we cannot, for example, offer an unlimited amount of sunshine. However, we have an exceptionally clean and healthy environment at this time by comparison with most other industrialised countries. Our environment is a national asset which should at all times be protected and enhanced. In so doing, we will have a very valuable asset which, in the years ahead, may well become a very marketable item within the international tourist industry.
The reduced access fares to Ireland by sea and air will undoubtedly benefit the industry as it seeks to draw more and more visitors to Ireland each year. The question is: can those now engaged and working in the tourist industry further improve the performance of the industry and can they meet the new challenge posed by the Government's absolute commitment and belief in their industry? I think it is fair to accept that only those working within the industry can answer that type of question. The Government must not — and I am quite sure they will not — allow their commitment and financial investment in the industry to be wasted or frittered away. The climate is right for those in the industry with vision, resourcefulness and energy to chart a new and successful decade ahead in Ireland's tourist industry.
I want now to turn to the area of social welfare where I note that public expenditure this year will exceed £2.6 billion. This is a very substantial sum. In the Programme for National Recovery Fianna Fáil said that their aim would be to maintain social welfare allowances in real terms to ensure that the position of recipients would not be eroded by inflation. I feel we have already made considerable progress towards our aim of a better managed and more humane social welfare system. We have extended optical and dental benefits to the spouses of insured workers. I hope that all dentists, in the interests of their patients, will participate fully in the scheme which has after all been sought from successive administrations for a good number of years.
The current development of computerisation within the Department of Social Welfare is proving helpful to those in need of assistance and welfare payments of various kinds. The Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Michael Woods, is committed to developing the service to such an extent that social welfare recipients will be able to call to their local welfare office and claim their entitlements on the spot. The Minister is committed to the introduction of the comprehensive new service and to the concept of the one stop shop for social welfare recipients. This is a development that I particularly welcome because, in my constituency of Dublin South-West, such a service and facility will be of tremendous benefit to social welfare recipients in their efforts to deal with the welfare system which, in the past, has proved complex, confusing and, at times, incomprehensible to the ordinary person.
The general increase of 3 per cent in social welfare allowances is to be welcomed. Naturally, because of Fianna Fáil's commitment to improving the lot of the less well off and disadvantaged in our society we in Fianna Fáil would wish that the increase referred to would be greater. However, the Minister has succeeded in increasing by over 11 per cent the personal rate of long-term urban unemployment assistance which will now be increased by an overall £4.20 to £42 per week. This 11 per cent increase is a substantial increase over and above the expected rate of inflation and other increases of greater than 3 per cent are also welcome. I hope that in each of their next three budgets, for the duration of this administration, social welfare will continue to run ahead of inflation. I know this would be welcomed by everyone in this House.
It should also be noted that all social welfare increases given in the budget will cost the Exchequer an additional £44.8 million this year. The total cost to the Exchequer in a full year will be £101 million. These are very substantial sums of money. I am delighted the Minister has managed to provide this money, despite the difficult financial task this Government have set themselves. I take this opportunity to compliment the Minister for Social Welfare on the high degree of professionalism he has brought to this very important ministry. His caring approach in running his Department is widely respected. His determination to make the Department more accessible and more amenable to the public is welcome and indeed is not before its time.
The continuation of equal treatment, alleviating payments until the end of 1988, at an additional cost this year of £20 million, is further evidence of this Government's caring approach and determination to ensure that social welfare recipients do not fall behind in terms of their receipts. The other measures announced, particularly the extension of the social insurance scheme by the Minister, are in keeping with this Government's determination that all who can pay should pay. The self-employed will be brought into the social insurance scheme from 6 April this year. It is right that the Government should ensure a widening of this scheme.
As a member of the Eastern Health Board I have seen at first hand the operation of the community drugs refund scheme and the long-term illness scheme. I compliment the Minister for Health, Deputy O'Hanlon and the Government for looking again at the 1988 budget to ensure that increased funding would be made available to allow these schemes to continue at their previous level. I am satisfied that the Government took account of informed and reasonable views on the proposed changes in the schemes referred to. The Government, realising that the reduction contemplated in the two schemes would impose undue hardship on the handicapped and those with long-term illnesses, have provided an additional £11 million for the Vote to ensure the continuation of the two schemes at their present level. This is yet another example of Fianna Fáil's humane and caring approach to the disadvantaged, the handicapped and the less well off in our society. I refer also to the Government's decision to provide an extra £2.8 million this year, £3.3 million in a full year, to ensure the continuation of assistance for the promotion of mobility among disabled drivers.
I welcome the Minister for Health's commitment to strengthening the community care aspect of the health services. The intention is to care for people within their own community, thereby, where possible, obviating the necessity for hospitalisation in acute hospitals when proper community care would be more than adequate for their needs. How often have we known of patients in hospital yearing to return home to their families, where warmth, care and compassion await them during their illness? Is it not true that often the person who is ill can make a more speedy recovery when cared for at home, especially when the caring family have the support of the health board's community care facilities?
The Minister's continued commitment to the planning and development of the new Tallaght hospital, in my constituency, is very much appreciated. We, not only in Tallaght but in the wider regions extending to Wicklow, Kildare and other parts of Dublin, look forward to an opening date in 1992-93. It is right that when the health services are being reorganised the Minister should try to ensure that the resources are available within the communities where they are required. In Dublin particularly the facilities are located in areas where the population, through demographic changes, have long since changed the balance of occupation in those areas. It is as well to relocate these facilities out in areas such as Tallaght, Clondalkin and Blanchardstown and the other newer towns around Dublin. It was one of the failings in planning, particularly in health in the past, that this was not done. Due account was not taken of the changes in the movment of the population. We are beginning to see the result in the form of large towns on the outskirts of Dublin — Tallaght, for example, with a population nearing 100,000 — where basic facilities such as hospitals are required. There is an intensity of such facilities in the inner city so people are faced with the prospect of making long journeys to the city. If there had been proper planning in the past this would not now be necessary and we could have provided earlier, perhaps, the facilities that are required in Tallaght and other such areas.
There have been a number of criticisms of the Jobsearch programme but I do not subscribe to those criticisms. I believe the Jobsearch programme has a great deal of merit. It has helped a great number of people. We see from the figures that over 40,000 people were placed in some scheme last year. A substantial number of those had never been offered anything from Government agencies in the past. That is worth nothing. Over 4,000 of those involved in the Jobsearch programme found permanent employment. Of course, another figure worth noting is that 12,700 left the live register when invited to avail of assistance under the programme. This is a very substantial number. We all know from attending our clinics at weekends that people who feel aggrieved, who believe they are not getting their entitlements, will often quote cases they know of people who are getting help to which they are not entitled. Perhaps some of those people are now included in the 12,700 who left the live register when offered assistance under the Jobsearch programme. The programme had a great deal of merit as it operated last year. The Minister intends to operated it again in 1988. I am sure other people will benefit from the training for interviews and placements. Participation in any scheme can only be of benefit to those concerned. It is better to be involved in something than to be sitting around and waiting for something to turn up. I congratulate the Minister on his decision to move the Jobsearch programme into 1988. I hope he will be able to record substantial progress when he advises us of the outcome for 1988.
I welcome the allocation of an additional £6.5 million to the Department of Education. This will be used for the school building programme, for the school improvement programme and the provision of classrooms, etc. Some of the schools built in the past ten to 15 years have tended to deteriorate extremely quickly so I wonder about the type of construction materials used and whether they meet the standard that is required for our climate. I am amazed when I visit a primary school in my constituency — and most of them are brand new schools because of the type of constituency that is Tallaght and its hinterlands — to find windows rotting away, doors in need of replacement and roofs needing repair or replacement as a result of weather conditions. I wonder why such work should be required at such an early date after construction. The planning unit within the Department of Education will have to look carefully at the type of materials used so that we do not have fairly substantial repair and maintenance bills occurring in a short time. The Minister and her advisers must take up this point.
I appeal also to the Minister to consider using some of the additional moneys to provide sports halls in our community schools. Over the years this programme seems to have fallen back somewhat. For example, in my constituency two schools, Rathcoole and Killinarden, spring to mind. They each need a sports hall because their education programme is geared to the utilisation of such facilities. It is a pity that sports halls have not been provided in both those schools before now. I shall be asking the Minister again to consider carefully those two schools as a priority because they are at maximum usage level.
They have planned their education programme around the availability of the sports halls, promised frequently in the past by a number of administrations but still awaited. Perhaps funds could be made available from the national lottery, it being the intention to use some of these funds towards sporting and recreational facilities? I am sure that other representatives will also be putting the case for schools in their areas, but there is a strong case to be made for the two schools I mentioned.
I welcome, as have many other Deputies, the commitment to a revival of the decentralisation programme, which has been talked about for a long number of years. All administrations tried in some way to revive and implement this programme but, for a variety of reasons, a great deal of progress was not made. The Minister for Finance in his contribution to this House on budget day referred to the fact that four centres in phase one of the programme — Ballina, Galway, Cavan and Sligo — are moving ahead very rapidly, contracts being signed or about to be signed. He also referred to the other areas of Limerick, Ennis, Nenagh, Killarney, Letterkenny, Waterford and Dundalk.
It is only right that we should take definite concrete steps towards implementing a decentralisation programme. As a Dublin Deputy, I can see one of the great drawbacks of not implementing such a programme. There is a whole imbalance in the movement of people across to the eastern region, caused partly by a failure to decentralise and partly by the concentration of resources on this side of the country, particularly in and around the Dublin region. In such a situation there is a need, through local government and so on, to make very substantial infrastructural investment in these areas. Only recently the Minister for the Environment has given sanction to a major roads construction project, the western parkway, involving construction costs of approximately £30 million. That is only one small portion of the total road construction programme envisaged for the greater Dublin region, some of which has already been provided.
There are sanitary services required to service major new towns like Tallaght, Clondalkin, and Blanchardstown on the northern fringes of Dublin. I wonder if all of these would have been necessary if we had been able to ensure that the population remained, so far as it was possible, in the various counties, towns and villages? Probably it was not feasible or practicable for them to remain because the jobs simply were not there. Whatever jobs were developing over a period of ten or 20 years tended to be available in the greater Dublin region. Decentralisation will, I hope, help to reverse that trend. That is something on which the Government are to be congratulated. I expect to see a movement out of the city through the development of the programme.
Decentralisation should not be confined to the various centres to which I have referred. I should like to see a commitment and a plan put forward for decentralisation out of Dublin 2, which tends to have all the Government agencies and Government Departments. There would be a great benefit to our newer towns on the outskirts of Dublin if they were to participate in decentralisation. They have a right to look for some of the benefits. Perhaps the Government could consider moving some of the agencies, not necessarily out of the Dublin region altogether but out to the new towns, such as Tallaght with a population of 100,000, or the new, developing town of Clondalkin, to Lucan and Blanchardstown and the other areas around? There is a great deal of merit in that suggestion. There is no reason for all these agencies to be concentrated in this small golden mile of the inner city. As the newer towns develop, a commitment might be given to moving some of the agencies out of those areas. That would give a certain stability to the newer towns and a great deal of hope to the thousands of new families who have moved to those areas in expectation of development and who until now have been disappointed.
The Minister also referred to the urban renewal scheme. It would be remiss of me, as a Deputy for Dublin south-west, if I did not mention his intention to designate an area in and around the town centre of Tallaght for expansion of this scheme. That is a very enlightened decision. I recognise that there have been some criticisms of this proposed designation by what I would term ill-informed opinion. I would remind those who have the view that it is to help any particular developer that the lands referred to in so far as the town centre is concerned are in public ownership. Therefore, the local authority, if they wish to take up the challenge, will have a great deal to say about how these lands are to be developed ultimately, by whom and in what manner. I should like to see that designation not confined solely to the town centre lands, but expanding outwards. There are a number of industrial estates in the Tallaght area which are at present under-utilised. The infrastructure and telecommunications facilities are there. The people of Tallaght are entitled to some bias in terms of Government action to create jobs and of Government commitment to try to develop the area.
Recent figures have shown that there are of the order of 6,200 people on the live register in Tallaght and of the order of 4,000 in Clondalkin. We must try to come to grips with those figures in the matter of the provision of jobs for these people. The Minister's proposal in relation to the designation of the Tallaght area will go some way towards achieving this. The decision has been warmly welcomed in the area, particularly by all of us working there and representing the area. We have been seeking this for a good number of years without success, but now the decision has been taken and it cannot but benefit the whole region of Tallaght and Clondalkin.
I hope the Minister will have an opportunity to look at the other new towns. Such a move should not be confined only to the Tallaght area. A case has been made for Clondalkin and also for Lucan. These new towns were built because Dublin County Council and Dublin Corporation decided to solve their housing crisis by developing those areas. Many of us representing the areas recognise that both local authorities have failed in their commitment to the needs of these areas in terms of infrastructural development and facilities and the building of local authority housing and local authority development required because of the movement of such huge numbers of families.
I believe that the decision taken in the budget regarding Tallaght is welcome and will have tremendous beneficial effect. We look forward to the construction projects which will inevitably arise from the decision taken.
Debate adjourned.