Deputy Burton was in possession. The Deputy has 19 minutes remaining.
Book of Estimates, 2003: Motion (Resumed).
The following motion was moved earlier today by the Minister for Finance:
That Dáil Éireann commends the 2003 Estimates for Public Services (Abridged) published by the Minister for Finance on 14th November, 2002.
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"rejects the Book of Estimates for 2003 which have failed to initiate any serious reform of public services to deliver value for money but have simply targeted the easy options for cutting spending without heed to their impact on the economy or the community."
–Deputy R. Bruton.
In England there is a children's rhyme recalling the attempts by Guy Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament. It states: "Remember, remember, the 5th of November." I gather a number of Fianna Fáil backbenchers want to adopt this rhyme to take account of their current predicament in regard to Estimates day 2002, the high point of Deputy "Guy Fawkes" McCreevy's career. It would state "Remember, remember 14 November". That was the day he exploded forever his and his party's reputation for financial and economic competence. On 14 November Deputy "Guy Fawkes" McCreevy blew up all hope of putting our infrastructure on a modern footing and shredded his flagship national development plan. It was the day the Minister destroyed totally what lingering credibility attached to his colleague's health strategy. Remember, remember 14 November, the day he made ordinary citizens, particularly the vulnerable, pay the price for his incompetence and his pre-election splurge by slashing essential public services. Guy Fawkes is remembered with traditional bonfires but the Minister for Finance made his own bonfire on 14 November when he lit a fire under Fianna Fáil's book of vanities, its election manifesto.
I remind the House of some of what was promised to the electorate last May by Fianna Fáil. On page 66 of the manifesto Fianna Fáil promises to expand the Garda by a further 2,000 members, on page 57 to invest in school buildings to ensure that every school attains modern standards within the next five years and on page 54 to extend medical card eligibility to over 200,000 extra people with clear priority given to families with children. On page 53 of the same document, Fianna Fáil attests it will implement the national health strategy, including a programme to increase by 3,000 the number of public hospital beds, and end hospital waiting lists within two years. To this end €1,100 million of additional capital spending was promised. On page 43, Fianna Fáil supports the idea of lower pricing for public transport during peak travel times, on page 44 the party commits to continuing with the very significant programme of investment in non-national roads which are so essential to the fabric of rural areas and on page 62 it promises a further expansion of social housing programmes to meet the housing needs of 15,000 households per annum.
The Book of Estimates says something different. According to Vote 20 there is not a single penny more for additional gardaí while Vote 27 describes a 13% cut in the capital budget for primary education. Vote 33 provides not a single additional medical card and instead of the €1,100 million in additional health capital spending there will be a mere €3.8 million. Vote 32 gives no real additional resources to CIE while allowing for increases in bus and train fares. Vote 25 provides for a 27% cut in funding for non-national roads and Vote 25 for a 5% cut in the social housing programme.
I have already referred to the dilemma of those in the affordable housing category who have had their first time buyer's grant taken away by the Government. Fingal County Council has built more affordable housing than any other local authority and we have more in the pipeline. At present, 420 people have been approved for that type of housing which they are to get next year, but they are short of that as of this week.
They are not.
They are. The Minister has taken the first time buyer's grant which is factored in to the sale of homes to them by Fingal County Council.
If they have already been approved by the local authority, they will get it. The Deputy should not mislead people.
Those people have been approved by Fingal County Council for new houses as they become available because we have a six month saving process they must undergo to show that they qualify for affordable housing. We have 83 people approved for houses coming on stream this year. They are fine, but the 420 others are not. The Minister can examine the records himself if he wishes. One poor newly married couple wrote to me about their hope of starting a family. The €3,500 that the Minister has chosen to take away is depriving them of the right to buy a house.
The Deputy should inform the House how many house sales have been cancelled. None have and she should deal in facts.
I move now to the dilemma of parents who will remember 14 November when into the bonfire went the plans for new schools and promises to refurbish the long list of obsolete buildings which masquerade as educational establishments. Fearing the fire was not bright enough, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Dempsey, took out the building plans for colleges and universities and added them to the bonfire.
The Book of Estimates sets out catastrophic decisions in relation to capital spending which amount to a total betrayal of the country's interest. It is no exaggeration to call this national sabotage and to accuse the Ministers responsible of economic treason. There was never the remotest chance that growth rates would remain at around 10% every year, but it is widely accepted that there is potential to grow at a sustained rate of 4% to 5% per annum for some years to come. That rate exceeds greatly the European average. The capital programme is the path to achieving this goal by removing the bottlenecks that are retarding growth, increasing inflation and making investment here highly risky. The assault on the capital programme is short-sighted in the extreme and undermines the future capacity of the economy to achieve steady growth rates. It destroys confidence by resuming wretched stop and go and boom and bust cycles.
For years Ministers were fond of quoting international competitiveness indices when Ireland was high on the league table but these same indices have now downgraded our economy from No. 11 to No. 24, citing in particular continuing weaknesses in infrastructure. In dumping its national investment plan, this Government is gambling rashly with our international standing. International investors looking at Ireland will get two definite signals from this Government that may well cause them to think twice about the value of locating here. They see a country that has prospered and accumulated substantial wealth, yet whose Government has chosen to abandon plans to use that wealth to establish conditions for future prosperity with better roads, railways, communications, schools and universities. Without investment, there is no basis for future prosperity and if a country will not invest in itself, how can it expect others to do so?
The Book of Estimates is a vote of no confidence in the economy. We should look at the public capital programme and compare the 2003 Estimates to those for 2002. Funding for agriculture and food has been cut by 30% and for forestry by 6%. The Minister cannot be proud of that. In the case of the latter there will be a real bonfire as saplings being reared for planting are destroyed thanks to cuts in the planting programme. Tourism funds have been cut by 11% after two of the most difficult years for the industry in recent memory. Fisheries have been cut by 26%, energy by 21%, and regional broadband provisions by 27% despite the waffle from Government about putting Ireland at the forefront of the knowledge economy. Cuts in education are of the order of 17% and none of these figures account for inflation. The Government will not invest in its own country. The same applies to the extraordinary national pension reserve fund and the international observer will ponder what this tells them about Ireland. The sum of €1 billion is set aside for investment to meet future liabilities, except that this year it must be borrowed and invested internationally during a very uncertain time in the equities market. We know from the last annual report and information available that the fund has taken a hit equal to a whole year's investment. Is the Government so lacking in confidence in the long-term future of the country that it cannot or will not find a route to have part of the fund invested in our roads, communications networks and public transport?
The Taoiseach highlighted the urgency of the roads and public transport programme by creating a new Department to oversee its implementation. It has been a total failure. We heard that within days the Minister was ready to go full speed ahead with the Dublin metro, with instructions to the Railway Procurement Agency to get the job done and have it finished the day before yesterday. By the end of the summer, however, he had backtracked and trimmed his sails. He revised his instructions to the agency to confirm its mandate only for the construction of the rail link from the city centre to the airport. Even those limited objectives appear now to have been dumped. At his press conference the Minister appeared to be unsure whether any funds had been allocated for the metro, for instance, and had to be gently reminded by his officials that €9 million was still available for planning in relation to transportation in the greater Dublin area.
As with rail, so too with the roads programme. The Minister has been forced to delay the commencement of essential road improvements, a delay that is causing consternation among every section of industry, domestic and international, commerce and tourism.
The worst approach is the one the Minister and his colleagues are pursuing. They announce plans, strategies, quangos and study groups by the dozen, but just when it comes to the point of committing real resources, they pull back. This does nothing but destroy confidence and leaves our country open to very unfavourable comparisons with others. For instance, how did medium-sized cities in France get their light rail systems fully in place in a five to six year time-frame? How did Athens get a two line metro system up and running in quite a short time-frame, with two others to be ready for the 2004 Olympics? We boast that we now out-perform these countries in productivity, growth and wealth. If that is the case, why do we lag so far behind them in getting our infrastructure right?
On the single issue of health, the Government must stand accused of succumbing to the oldest vice in the handbook of political chicanery: "If you feel like lying, at least tell a big lie". The Government did this with gusto. It added zest to the lie. It told it up and down the country with a zeal and enthusiasm that would leave one breathless. We first had the health strategy, with its promise of capacity building. In plain language, this meant new beds, wards and step-down facilities with a price tag of €7.7 billion over the decade. A full €1 billion of this funding was to be allocated in 2003. The 14 November bonfire left only €3.8 million of this funding intact for 2003, a pathetic four cent for every €1,000 promised.
The inescapable fact is that our population has increased with which comes additional pressure on the hospital system. To date, very little capacity has been added to the hospital system since the ill-judged reductions in bed numbers in the late 1980s. The health strategy promised an additional 3,000 beds, but there has not been any delivery or commitment of resources.
What is the biggest lie of all? The answer – a permanent end to waiting lists in two years. There are only 534 days remaining for the Government to make good on this promise. The Estimates make it plain that it will not even make a start. The Minister said waiting lists would be gone in two years and that 200,000 additional medical cards would be issued. Instead we face the second increase in the threshold for the drugs refund scheme while the medical card commitment has gone straight into the bin. The Minister for Fin ance prides himself on low taxes, but by increasing the drugs refund scheme threshold in this cavalier way he has slapped a tax on family illness, wiping away in these two strokes and in the additional cost of health insurance this year alone many of the financial gains to ordinary families of his tax reductions in recent budgets.
The decisions on education are completely mystifying. What is it about the Government that it can meet on a Saturday to make grandiose spatial plans about developments throughout the length and breadth of the country in a logical and organised way but will not guarantee the provision of new schools in the locations chosen as development zones? I cite one such zone on the edge of the constituency of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Dempsey, where the Bacon reports suggested a high density housing zone, with which my own council, Fingal County Council, has gone along. It is proceeding with some 3,500 additional new homes planned for the area alongside the 3,500 built in the past five years, but when Fingal County Council approached the Department of Education and Science to nominate a delegate to sit on the steering committee for the special development zone, it met with a cold, negative response. There is no commitment to meet the demand for additional schools that must arise when homes are built in such numbers in a very short time. In fact, now that the Minister is abolishing the first time buyers' grant, he might give the occupants of the new homes a free placard because as sure as eggs are eggs, they will be out campaigning for their new school within three or four years of taking up residence in their special development zone homes. That is what the Government is doing. The shredding of the primary schools capital programme in the Book of Estimates can only confirm the misgivings of families in these zones, to say nothing of the wholesale deceit practised last May on hundreds of communities in relation to new and refurbished schools.
There is a fairly nasty piece of political subterfuge in the severely reduced allocation to third level. The Minister for Education and Science has decided to get his way on third level fees by hook or by crook. There is a black hole in the Estimate in relation to third level capital funding and spending. By reducing funds for capital investment at this level and reducing funds promised for research, the Minister and the Government hope to promote a clamour from university and college heads for the reintroduction of fees by either the front door through fees or the back door through registration or other charges. The Minister wants others, that is, the heads of the colleges and universities, to do his dirty work for him. They would be fools to fall into his trap. Knowledge industries are the key to future industrial growth and a full, sustained commitment to educational access is a vital element in promoting the image of Ireland as a suitable location for industry.
There is a myth abroad, encouraged by Fianna Fáil, that these cuts are somehow necessary and that future economic prosperity depends on them. The opposite is the truth. The Minister for Finance stoked the boom and is now pushing Ireland deeper into recession. His stop-start approach is delivering not boom, but bust. These cuts will not just depress the economy in 2003 by shredding the national development plan, they also will undermine the basis for growth for years to come.
I wish to share time with Deputies Healy and Morgan.
Agreed.
With the publication of the Book of Estimates, the Minister for Finance has helped to redefine the up and down cycle we usually refer to as "boom and bust". That cycle can now be referred to as "splurge and slash". The Minister decided, half way through the life of a Government, that it was politically expedient to let go of any semblance of financial controls, let public finances run riot, allow Ministers to spend as they saw fit and ingratiate themselves with a voting electorate to gain the ultimate prize of re-election. As a political strategy, it was on the button, but as a way of running the economy and sustaining it into the future, it is something for which all of us now have to pay.
The 2% actual increase in expenditure in the Book of Estimates, which is below the rate of inflation, is illustrated by a number of cuts. There are areas where the Government is proposing to spend less money in 2003 than it spent in 2002. The direction of these cuts underlie the philosophy of the Minister, namely, that those who should pay for his profligacy are the most vulnerable in society.
The Minister has chosen to cut funding programmes and support systems for the most vulnerable. Funding for victim support is reduced by 5% and the Equality Authority will face a reduction of 4%. Funding for persons with disabilities will be reduced by 44%. Anti-racism programmes will see a funding reduction of 57% and legal aid of 4%.
The Minister has also chosen to undermine our future economic development. He has deemed that the building of economic intelligence and information is going to be less important in 2003. He has decided to reduce funding to the National Economic and Social Council and to the National Economic and Social Forum. He has decided that the Central Statistics Office should have a 40% cut just because there will not be a census in 2003 and as if the need to produce statistics concerning a wide area of economic life has suddenly stopped. He has reduced funding for the Office of the Ombudsman by 14% and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner by 2%.
That the national roads programme for new roads is not proceeding to the extent that had been indicated is not something that the Green Party will shed tears over but that the secondary roads programme is being emasculated shows that in terms of travelling in and out of Dublin and around the country this Government has a very skewed sense of priorities.
In terms of industrial development the Government has decided there should be less funding available. The funding for new buildings for industrial units provided by the IDA is to be reduced by 84%, or €16 million. Grants by Enterprise Ireland to indigenous industry, the sector of the economy which we need to encourage if we are to become more self-reliant, is to be reduced by 18%, or €14 million. Funding for the Office of Consumer Affairs will be down by 7%.
Most pernicious are the cuts proposed in the education programme. Primary school building projects are down by 4%, or €13 million while secondary school education is to lose 10%, or €20 million. Third level and further education, the sector which brings back those who have been disappointed and let down by the primary and secondary sectors, is down by 40%, or €85 million.
One of the anomalies in the Estimates is that funding for the Secret Service will decrease over last year but is a massive increase on what was originally proposed. It went up from €450,000 last year to €900,000. It is now being pared back to €850,000. Given the mindset of the Government and the wish to keep most of what it does secret, it is something I can readily understand.
The most upsetting element of this Book of Estimates is that the community and voluntary sector has been assaulted by this Minister for Finance. Community and voluntary grants are down by 16%, or €5.5 million. Funding for social inclusion measures has been reduced by 6% while funding for the Western Development Council is down by 60% and for community enterprise and information technology for community groups is down by 84%. Funding for the money advice and budgeting service is down by 8%. In social welfare, family income supplement is down by 18%, unemployment support measures are down by 64% and the carer's allowance is down by 2%. This is a Government which says that not only did it make a mess of spending up to and beyond the general election but that it will not take the responsibility and the blame while those who have least in society can and will. This Government cannot expect support from this side of the House by engaging in such action. This country deserves better both economically and socially. It is the intention of my party to challenge a Government which sees these not as the essen tials of everyday life but as some type of added extras.
Ba mhaith liom leasú Sinn Féin ar an rún seo a mholadh. I would like to commend the Sinn Féin amendment to the House:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"condemns the 2003 Estimates for Public Services (Abridged) published by the Minister for Finance on 14th November, 2002, as a programme for cutbacks which:
runs totally counter to the pre-General Election commitments of both the Fianna Fail party and the Progressive Democrats party;
renders inoperable the Programme for Government, the National Development Plan and the National Health Strategy;
will cause real hardship in the areas of health and education; and calls, in particular, for the reinstatement of the first time home buyers grant and the fulfilment of the commitment to extend medical card cover to an additional 200,000 people."
The Government is asking the House to commend the 2003 Book of Estimates which has caused justifiable anger and outrage throughout the State. The Estimates represent a programme of cuts and they promise a budget which will totally negate the commitments made by the two Government parties before the general election. The Government has effectively torn up its own programme for Government, the national development plan and the national health strategy. It has flittered each and every one of them. Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats misled the electorate before 17 May. I do not believe for one moment that the Minister for Finance, at the very least, did not have knowledge of the true state of the public finances. A memorandum proposing cuts of some €900 million was being prepared in the Minister's office and was issued in June, a matter of weeks after the election. We had forewarning of what was to come immediately after the general election when we compared the Fianna Fáil election manifesto with the programme for Government. One of the most significant commitments in the manifesto was the elimination, not the reduction, of hospital waiting lists in the space of two years. Between the election and the publication of the programme for Government, the promise was silently dropped. That was a foretaste of what was to come; we have the full menu in the Book of Estimates.
The most shameful and disgraceful broken promise has to be the Government's reneging on its commitment to extend medical card cover to a further 200,000 people. It should not be seen simply in the context of this year's U-turns by the Government, the annual roll-call of U-turns. Throughout the years of the Celtic tiger, people on low incomes who earned that little bit over the limit for qualification for the medical card had a right to expect that increased prosperity would finally allow the Government to extend qualification. Prior to the election they were led to believe that it might happen and now they have been betrayed.
The Government is bragging about its increases in the health budget but the reality is that the 6% spending increase for next year is far behind medical inflation which is currently running at 10%. Health boards are already running over budget for 2002 and this will likely be carried forward into 2003. The drop in expected spending will cause substantial cutbacks in services and in jobs. Patients will suffer and sadly some might die as a result. The Department of Health and Children has confirmed that no new beds will be opened next year. We were promised over 3,000 new beds within the ten-year period of the so-called health strategy. The two-tier public health service is unreformed, inefficient and bureaucratic. It has never recovered from the cuts of the 1980s. The public health service is carrying the private system on its back. Now the Government has effectively binned its own health strategy.
I wish to express the outrage of people at the Government's slashing of the first-time home buyer's grant. This is an appalling act and it must be reversed. It too must be seen in a broader context – the abject failure over five years of the Government's so-called housing policy. We have over 50,000 people on local authority waiting lists. We have young people taking on huge mortgages as house prices continue to rise despite the economic downturn. Now those people who managed to clamber on to the property ladder in the absence of proper social and affordable provision are to have this grant taken away from them. The already totally inadequate social housing programme is to be cut by 5%.
The Government backbenchers who have gone on the airwaves expressing personal opposition to the removal of the first-time buyer's grant should put up or shut up and vote to reinstate this grant. This is their opportunity.
The last Dáil saw repeated efforts by Members on all sides to press for real progress on the primary school building programme. There was hardly a Deputy that did not raise the case of schools in his or her constituency that were waiting years for badly needed new build or repair work. Some of these children are trying to learn in atrocious, Dickensian conditions.
Again, the pre-election promise from this Government was that it would deliver. The budget would go up and the work would be done. Another false commitment and another betrayal. I urge support for the amendment in the name of the Sinn Féin Deputies in the House.
The Book of Estimates published on 14 November is outrageous, unacceptable and irresponsible. Some commentators have suggested that the Estimates are the result of incompetence or mismanagement or of some mistaken notion on the part of the Minister and the Government. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a deliberate, ideologically-driven, right wing, Thatcherite policy undertaken to make PAYE workers, social welfare recipients and the poor generally pay for the huge transfers of funds that took place over the past five years in Minister McCreevy's five budgets.
Huge amounts of money have been transferred to the people who were already very wealthy and who did not need it. The gap between rich and poor over the course of those five budgets grew by something like €390 per week between a person on unemployment assistance and someone on a salary of £50,000. The figures for higher earners and more wealthy individuals are much worse than that. So this is not in any way a result of incompetence or mismanagement, it is a deliberate policy of supporting the very rich as against the ordinary poor people either on social welfare or PAYE.
Neither is it true that the Government found out about the financial situation after the general election. On 5 December 2001, the Minister for Finance notified the European Union of €900 million of cuts he was going to propose for 2003 as part of our agreement under the Growth and Stability Pact, so he was well aware of the cutbacks that he was proposing six months before the general election. However, he was prepared to go on record during the election to say that no cutbacks, secret or otherwise, were being considered.
The electorate was simply told lies during the election, and this Book of Estimates proves the point. The health strategy, the Fianna Fáil election manifesto and the programme for Government are all in tatters. In relation to health, it has already been pointed out that we were promised an elimination or abolition of waiting lists within two years. Anybody who knew anything about the health service knew that this was simply unattainable, that it was untrue and that the people proposing it knew it to be unattainable. It could not be achieved without huge transfers of funds that were never proposed.
Two hundred thousand people have now been betrayed regarding the non-granting of medical cards that were promised during the election campaign. Twice in six months the drug scheme has been changed to ensure that people will pay more for drugs – people suffering long-term ill ness. It has been said that there is a long-term illness scheme which covers drugs but there are very many long-term illnesses that are not covered by the scheme, such as asthma, and families are paying through the nose for drug schemes month after month.
In my home town of Clonmel we have St. Joseph's Hospital, where there are patients on corridors, in beds, on trolleys and in accident and emergency departments waiting for hours on end to be admitted. The main roof of the hospital is leaking down on top of patients and staff. It was promised that it would be approved for funding this year but that has gone by the wayside also. We were promised that a 23-bed unit, the shell of which is in place in the hospital, would be funded this year to ensure that people would no longer have the indignity of being placed in beds on open corridors. That is also gone by the wayside.
The radiotherapy service that we in the south-east are entitled to, and which was promised by various Ministers and Ministers of State during the election campaign, has been reneged upon as well. Various other aspects of the health budget, including disabled persons grants, are being slashed by county councils and local authorities who do not have the money and are not being provided with the money by the Department.
The transport Estimate shows that there are huge cutbacks on necessary road works affecting constituencies like mine, where the Cashel bypass has again been put on hold. Huge cutbacks will decimate the maintenance and upkeep of regional and country roads. The Estimates herald the approval by the Minister for Transport for the closure of rail links from Limerick Junction to Rosslare and from Limerick to Ballybrophy. The €34 million flood alleviation scheme for Clonmel, promised last year by the Minister who sat here up to a few minutes ago, and which was supposed to begin in 2003, has been reneged upon. More people can expect to be flooded by up to four or five feet of water in their homes in future in Clonmel and south Tipperary.
The education cutbacks are probably the most disgraceful of the lot. Young children are being taught in damp, decrepit, leaking, over-crowded and rat-infested conditions in schools. John Carr put it well when he said that we live in a country where a champion racehorse like Rock of Gibraltar enjoys better conditions than many schoolchildren.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Estimates. It is important that people should understand the realities we face. The realities are that there has been a slowdown in the income accruing to the State because there has been a slowdown, not only in this economy, but in every economy across the world.
The Minister knew that 12 months ago.
What about the promises in Fianna Fáil's election manifesto?
Allow the Minister to continue without interruption.
Tiocfaidh mé go dtí sin ar ball beag agus tiocfaidh mé go dtí na geallúintí a thug Páirtí an Lucht Oibre.
The income accruing to the State has not been growing as rapidly as it grew in the recent past because the economy is not growing as rapidly as it was, but our economy is still growing much faster than comparative economies. Given those circumstances, basic facts must be faced. We either control expenditure, which will increase next year and we still have to take account of rises in social welfare expenditure, etc., or we must raise taxes. The third option – which I believe the Opposition would like – is to borrow ad nauseum, but that has two downsides. It cannot be done under the stability pact and those who borrow sooner or later have to pay back what they borrowed.
What about all the money the Government gave to some of the super rich over the years?
I can deal with that point. The super rich and others who got a reduction in their tax of 20%—
They are the workers.
What about the super rich – the people who own racehorses?
This is hard to take.
It surely is – the Deputies opposite should hear themselves talk.
If Deputy Healy continues to interrupt, I will have to ask him to leave the Chamber. He was afforded the courtesy of being listened to without interruption. Every Member of this House in entitled to the same facility.
The majority of the people realise that the creation of jobs, which involves encouraging enterprise, is the best way to eliminate poverty. Having spent a lifetime creating employment, I cannot understand those people who do not realise that the best way of helping those who have been dependent – as many were in the 1980s – on the dole for a living is the creation of jobs.
The Minister might do something about that in south Tipperary.
If the Deputy speaks again, he will have to leave the Chamber.
Because the number of unemployed in Deputy Healy's constituency contracted dramatically in the past ten years he should not feel sorry for the people who got jobs during that time.
Ag caint ar na míreanna éagsúla i mbuiséad mo Roinne, ní féidir comparáid a dhéanamh idir airgead na bliana seo caite agus airgead na bliana seo. Tá cúrsaí riaracháin iomlán na Roinne san áireamh don mbliain reatha agus, ar ndóigh, ba Roinn i bhfad níos mó an Roinn Ealaíon, Oidhreachta, Gaeltacht agus Oileán ó thaobh cúrsaí riaracháin ná an Roinn atá ann i láthair na huaire. Chomh maith leis sin, d'éirigh linn na bunrudaí tábhachtacha a choinneáil. Ar ndóigh tá gearradh siar ann trasna ar go leor Vótaí. Ní mór é sin a dhéanamh.
Agus mé ag plé leis na gearranna, rinne mé iarracht déanamh cinnte gur deineadh iad san áit is lú a dhéanfaidís dochar do na cláracha éagsúla a bhí á láimhseáil ag an Roinn. Maidir le Foras na Gaeilge, tá gearradh siar ann de thart ar 11%, síos go €12 mhilliún, ach caithfear é sin a chur i gcomparáid leis an €7 milliún a bhí á thabhairt don fhoras i 2000. Mar sin táthar ag caint ar bhuiséad beagnach dúbalta ar dhá bhliain ó shin. Tá sé anuas beagáin ach tá oiread go leith ann agus a bhí dhá bhliain ó shin.
Tá méadú beag ar chiste na Gaeilge. Seo an chiste as a n-íoctar Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, Taidhbhearc na Gaillimhe, Bord na Leabhar Gaeilge agus dreamanna beaga eile. Tá méadú ar an gciste sin. Maidir le tithíocht Gaeltachta, is dócha go mbeinn molta dá mbeinn i mo thost agus nach gá níos mó a rá faoi mar leanfar leis an scéim sin. Is scéim chultúir agus teanga go bunúsach í. Bunaíodh an scéim sin – agus tugaim creidiúint do mo chairde i gCumann na nGaedhal – sa bhliain 1929 agus leanadh leis ó shin. Go deimhin, nuair a bhí muintir an Lucht Oibre i gcumhacht chuir siad deireadh leis, ach, ar ndóigh, ní thuigeann siad é sin anois.
Maidir le scéimeanna feabhsúcháin sa Ghaeltacht, is aisteach smaoineamh cúpla bliain siar nuair a cuireadh deireadh, go bunúsach, leis na scéimeanna sin. Stopadh ar chur chaoi ar na bóithre áise sa Ghaeltacht. Nuair a tháinig mé isteach sa Roinn, ní amháin gur éirigh liom airgead a fháil do na bóithre áise ach fuair mé airgead do na bóithre portaigh, don athnuacháin baile, do na bóithre straitéiseacha agus do chéanna Gaeltachta. Beidh €10 milliún le caitheamh ar sin an bhliain seo chugainn. Ní raibh pingin á chaitheamh ar bhóithre nó ar infrastruchtúr na Gaeltachta seachas corr-ché anonn is anall nuair a bhí Páirtí an Lucht Oibre i mbun na Roinne.
Tá mé bródúil as an rud atáimid á dhéanamh mar níl aon cheist faoi ach go bhfuil bun eagar na Gaeltachta thar a bheith lag agus go bhfuil go leor le déanamh fós len é a thabhairt suas don chaighdeán náisiúnta. Tuigeann pobal na Gaeltachta go bhfuil níos mó déanta faoin mbun eagar le cúpla bliain anuas ná mar a rinneadh ariamh.
Chomh maith leis sin táimid ag leanúint leis na scéimeanna a bhaineann le cúrsaí halla agus caithimh aimsire. Arís, creidim go bhfuil an ceart céanna ag pobal na Gaeltachta do shaoráidí maithe caithimh aimsire agus atá ag dream ar bith sa tír. Tá na scéimeanna seo á riaradh tríd an Roinn seo, idir an scéim tithíochta, na scéimeanna a bhaineann le cúrsaí bunstruchtúir agus na scéimeann a bhaineann le hallaí pobail, mar déantar na scéimeanna sin a riaraidh tré mheán na Gaeilge. Is cuid den crann taca don teanga, atá go mór faoi bhrú sa Ghaeltacht, atá iontu.
Cad mar gheall ar na daoine nach bhfuil cónaí orthu sa Ghaeltacht?
Or anywhere else.
Cad mar gheall orthu?
Tá liosta anseo.
Caitear mórchuid airgid orthu. Caitheadh na billiúin ar infrastruchtúr sa chathair seo. Cé mhéad a chosnaíonn an M50 i gcomparáid leis an méid a caitear ar bhunstruchtúr na Gaeltachta. Ar ndóigh, tá an dearcadh ag daoine ins an taobh seo den tír a bheith i gcónái in éad ar an gcúpla pingin féin a chaitear thiar. Ní bhíonn caint dá laghad ó Theachtaí áirid – agus feicim an Teachta thuas ansin atá mar ionadaí ar an taobh thiar den tír – nuair a chaitear mórchuid airgid anseo, ach ná caitear pingin thiar. Téann an argóint seo siar go cheist Chnoc Mhuire fadó – the famous Knock airport syndrome. Any money spent west of the Shannon is seen by certain parties here as a waste of money.
I will defend spending money in the Gaeltacht because there is no doubt that anyone who has to cope with the infrastructure there on a daily basis finds it particularly weak. Investment in the Gaeltacht is only an effort to catch up with addressing the lack of infrastructure there.
What about the Western Development Commission?
I will come to that. Faoi na scéimeanna chultúir agus shoisialta sa Ghaeltacht, íoctar na mná tí, scéim na bhfoghlaimeoirí Gaeilge agus na scéimeanna sin, agus tá eagrú nua á dhéanamh agam faoi scéim labhairt na Gaeilge. Maidir leis na mná tí, is dóigh liom nach iad muintir na Gaeltachta amháin atá tar éis buntáiste a fháil as an scéim sin. Is scéim náisiúnta í a bhfuil meas ag pobal na tíre. Faigheann gasúir ó gach uile ceantar den tír buntáiste as an scéim sin agus tá sé fíor-thábhachtach tacaíocht a thabhairt di.
Tuigtear dom go raibh úrlabhraithe an Fhreasúra ag caitheamh anuas ar an laghdú san údarás. Ar ndóigh, tá athrú struchtúir á dhéanamh ansin. Trí bliana ó shin dúirt mé go mba cheart scrúdú a dhéanamh maidir le sealbhachas an údaráis. Ní fheicim buntáiste ar bith ag an údarás a bheith ina thiarna talúin gan brabach ag go leor sealbhachais a bheadh i bhfad níos úsáidigh dá mbeadh cuid mhaith acu in úinéireacht na ndaoine atá i seilbh na monarcan.
It makes no sense for the assets of Údarás na Gaeltachta to be tied up in that organisation when some units could be strategically sold to the occupier who would then have the value of the asset as security. I decided three years ago that a much more dynamic approach should be taken to Údarás na Gaeltachta financing. I have no doubt that, by the end of next year, there will be more development in the Gaeltacht with the budget I allocated because of the structural changes I have put in place than will have happened even this year with record funding.
I wish to refer to the community development support programme and the partnerships. There is enough money in the fund to implement the full range of existing programmes. The White Paper commitments will be spread over a slightly longer period and there will not be the same rate of growth as previously. The provision for the Western Development Commission is based on the likely demand because this year it was not able to spend the money given to it. I see no point in the Minister allocating—
Minister, your time has concluded.
The Minister will have some job answering that when he crosses the Shannon.
I will have no problem answering that.
I wish to share my time with Deputy Connaughton.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
These Estimates and the spending cuts planned under them are not only intolerable, they are inexplicable. Not one economic commentator much less political party suggested that cuts of such an order of magnitude were necessary or desirable. Everybody who spoke in advance of the Estimates maintained that infrastructure spending and capital investment should be maintained to ensure we sustain competitiveness and keep jobs and to give us the ability to grow in the future, yet inexplicably the Minister targeted infrastructure spending for the biggest cuts of all, guaranteeing job losses in the short-term and inhibiting growth and the creation of jobs in the future. The job losses will be greatest in the construction industry where only a few months ago, the Minister and other Ministers told the construction industry to gear up for the big spend under the national development plan.
At a time when he should be priming the economy which, as a previous speaker said, is slowing down, the Minister is engaging in pro-cyclical policies, in addition to policies which are taking huge sums of money out of the economy such as the savings scheme and the national pension fund. Either the Minister wants to plunge the economy into outright recession or he is so concerned with his image that he will go to almost any lengths to prove he is a man capable of making hard decisions no matter what the consequences. Nobody ever doubted the Minister's ability to make hard decisions but we doubted his ability to make wise decisions.
Fine Gael demanded the Minister rein in current spending. We demanded evaluation and reform of structures and spending programmes. We demanded value for money and efficiencies. We demanded an end to the unplanned and untargeted incremental spending we have seen in recent years without any evaluation of the outcome of that spending, except perhaps an electoral evaluation. What we got instead were savage and equally unplanned and inefficient across-the-board spending cuts in virtually every programme. The irony of all this is that these cuts will not save money. Instead, they will increase inefficiency and, ultimately, they will be seen as an even more reprehensible waste of money. The overheads will not change and bureaucracies and structures will stay in place. All that will happen is that services to the public will be cut across the board. Local authorities will have JCBs sitting in depots rusting and engineers will be twiddling their thumbs in offices around the country, all for the want of a ha'p'orth of tar. There will not be money for materials to do essential repair work and this will result in bigger bills further down the road.
Nowhere will the service cuts be more severely felt than in the health service. Maybe one can postpone repairs to roads for a little while, but one cannot postpone repairs to people. If there must be health cuts, one must plan them in such a way that at least they have the merit of achieving value for money, but there has been no attempt to do that. Instead, we will have hospital labs with expensive equipment and idle staff but no supplies. Theatres will close down for the want of essential, although minor, repairs. Social workers will sit in offices because they will have no petrol allowances. I could go on, but what it boils down to is that not only will the health ser vice become more inefficient, there has been no attempt to establish priorities to protect the sickest and the most vulnerable people. The budget for acute hospitals has been savaged. The place where acutely ill people who are in a crisis go for treatment has been targeted for massive cuts. I do not think people realise how big the cuts will be. The Minister for Health and Children will not be worried about patients on hospital trolleys in corridors this time next year because they will not get as far as the corridors. They will be out on the streets because by this time next year hospital budgets will be non-existent and hospitals will have to embark on massive borrowing or will have to close their doors.
I would like to share a story with the House because it epitomises what is happening in the community to our sickest, most vulnerable and dependent people. I came across this case yesterday which concerns a mother suffering from multiple sclerosis who is confined to a wheelchair, whose husband is dead and who has a 14 year old daughter in school. Until recently she was lucky enough to have the services of a community employment scheme care attendant. When the scheme ended she applied for a home help. The reply from the health board was that it could give her a home help for two hours per week. That was all it had funding for. However, as she has a 14 year old daughter, it was expected that she would be able to care for her mother. Does that not say it all about the kind of society the Government has overseen in post-Celtic tiger Ireland? Obscene as that story is, we will hear many more such stories before this year is out if the spending cuts go ahead as planned.
The cutbacks contained in the Book of Estimates are shocking by any standards but when viewed in the context of the healthy state of the Exchequer only six months ago, they are brutal and shocking. This Book of Estimates was born out of lies and deception, with breathtaking acrobatic reverse somersaults which would do justice to Olympic gymnasts. It is a remarkable turn-around by any standard. The question on everybody's mind is, how could Exchequer funding go so dramatically wrong in six months? People cannot accept it because they know it is not right. The question being asked in every pub is, where did the missing millions go? Nobody has answered that question in this debate so far. How could the Taoiseach promise 200,000 people six months ago that they would get a medical card but so cruelly dash their hopes last Thursday? How can a Government or its Deputies face school managers, school children and parents and tell them their schools will not be refurbished for another five years after what they heard at the last general election? I could go on and on but I do not have the time.
Cuts in respect of the farming community amount to 30%. The enterprise section, the Western Development Commission, IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and anybody who might create a job face cuts. That makes a mockery of what the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, tried to tell us earlier.
There are, however, other projects buried in the Book of Estimates which will not come to light until prised out of the Government. One such project is the new community hospital in Tuam. An undertaking was given by the Taoiseach in my presence and that of 300 others before the general election that it would be funded in 2003. Last Thursday and Friday, yesterday and today I made several telephone calls to the office of the Minister for Health and Children. As an elected Member of this House, I expect to be told by the relevant Department what is or is not in the Book of Estimates. I did not get an answer to any question I asked. I tried to raise the matter in the House today but was prevented from doing so as it is against the rules of the House. We talk about open government, but the Government is not open. Either the money has not been allocated or there is a skirmish going on behind the scenes to try to save the backbenchers from east Galway by coming up with a story. The Western Health Board does not know whether there is funding for this hospital. Irrespective of what party is in Government, a Member of this House should have access to public documents. The Book of Estimates is a public document and I am entitled to know its finer details. I have been refused that information on no fewer than seven occasions. I am going to keep at it until I find out whether or not the Government has reneged on another promise.
The Deputy's time is up.
I am sorry that I do have more time as I have a litany to say to the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, while he is in the House. I will save it for another day.
After years of unprecedented growth the public finances face a difficult period ahead. The global economy is in recession. World economic growth has faltered and the days of double digit growth have passed. Yesterday the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, admitted that his country's economic prospects were not promising and that he expected no improvement in the short term. On Friday the head of the International Monetary Fund warned that the global economy is in a difficult situation, that growth over the coming months was set to be slower than expected. The US economy is expected to grow at just 1% in the current quarter. The Italian economy will grow by just 0.6 % this year. Plainly, this is not the time to back the policies of punitive taxation, massive borrowing and permanent deficits. Yet these are the concomitants of the policies advanced by the Opposition, paying lip service to the notion that spending must be reined in while at the same time criticising every cut in spending. This is the shallow double-think which plunged the country into depression in the 1980s, and which guides Opposition policy today.
The last time Fine Gael was directly elected to office was 1982. Just four years later we had the highest debt-per-head in the world. A quarter of a million people were unemployed. Some 40,000 people a year were emigrating. This was achieved with the help of the Labour Party. It is evident that they have learned nothing. Plainly, the party which would spend €400 million compensating taxi drivers; spend millions more on Eircom shareholders; lay off 40,000 public servants and introduce a new 30% tax rate is not the party to lecture the House on fiscal rectitude.
What about the Bertie bowl?
Now is the time for clear fiscal policies and a definite fiscal agenda.
The Minister should ask Charlie Haughey about it.
Deputy Burton cannot lecture me. The last time the Deputy was in Government, she gave the poor a £1.50 increase in the old age pension. The Deputy should not lecture me. She also gave a monthly increase of £1 for child benefit. The Deputy was a member of the party responsible for it.
On 26 April, at the outset of the election campaign, I set out my agenda. I asserted that Fianna Fáil, if re-elected to Government, would commit to maintaining our annual budgets close to balance or in surplus, in accordance with EU economic guidelines.
We must not forget the fact that Deputy McCreevy put up his two fingers to Europe.
Even though people inside and outside the House would care to forget all this, I was one of many Ministers who, during the election campaign, asserted that our budgetary proposals would be responsible and that we would spend less, borrow less and tax the Irish people less. I further asserted that we could not go back to the era of high borrowing which only ensures a real deterioration in the national finances and contributes to economic instability. We could not tax and spend our way to providing more employment and better services – as the Labour Party was telling us it would do, if returned to office. This is the stance which underlined our approach to the general election and it underlined our thinking regarding the Estimates. It will ensure that Ireland does not return to a 1980s-style borrowing spiral, by following the tax and spend policies which the parties opposite desire, particularly, the Labour Party. In light of budgetary constraints we simply have to prioritise – there is no realistic or sensible alternative.
Is that why the Minister scrapped investment in broadband?
Spending rises must be reduced.
Deputy Burton must allow the Minister to speak without interruption.
No economy with around 4% growth can spend as if it was growing at 10%, without massively increased taxation, borrowing or both. That is the simple maths of the matter. Despite all this, the current and capital gross allocation for 2003 will be nearly double the amount spent in 1997. There can be few instances where modern western governments have managed such an increase, a doubling of expenditure across the board in five or six years. The health spend is up by €4.6 billion.
With nothing to show for it.
Education spending is up by €2.3 billion. Social welfare is up by €3.7 billion. There was never anything like that kind of increase when the Labour Party was in office. On the capital side we are investing 170% more in 2003 than in 1997.
In my own Department, the spend has increased massively over the period; maritime safety is up 213%; energy is up 296%.
Broadband is down.
Communications spending in the past three years is up 7500% – this is not a mistake or a typo; marine research is up 112% and fishery harbours is up 758% in the past five years. In the marine and natural resources areas alone, spending is up by almost 50% since 1999. In the other areas of my Department huge progress will be made in 2003; more than €32 million will be invested in broadband infrastructure, completing private sector projects and beginning work on the new local authority metropolitan area networks.
Deputy Crawford, who is sitting opposite, will be delighted to hear that Monaghan, Cavan and Louth will be recipients of much of the spend next year and the following year, in regard to broadband. He need not go back home and claim credit for it either.
What about Meath?
We will continue the roll-out of the digital media hub and will increase the conservation provision of the energy budget by more than 40% to facilitate the continued delivery of strategic, sustainable and renewable energy programmes.
Capital spending is down in my Department, but there is a reason for that. Some large projects on which we embarked over the past two years, such as the new marine research vessel, are reaching completion. The economy is still growing but at a slower pace so spending too must slow. It is the only tenable approach to the present difficulties. It is the approach which we adopted in 1987, which built the Celtic tiger. It is the right approach today as well.
The parties opposite argue that we squandered the boom, that we spent too much. Were we wrong to increase social welfare payments above the rate of inflation? There were record increases in old age pensions above the growth rate of the average industrial wage and far above anything ever even conceived by the parties opposite, particularly the party of the so-called left. Were we were wrong to take 380,000 taxpayers from the tax net; to pursue the policies which provided 370,000 jobs; to provide the infrastructure we put in place over the past five years; and to build the pensions fund – which the Labour Party wanted to raid, in order to spend today?
The Minister is losing €1 billion a year.
That is where the money went, it was not squandered. It was spent on jobs, pensions, infrastructure and prosperity. The paucity of policy on the benches opposite is underlined by the fact that, at the same time, the Government is being criticised for having spent too much and for not spending enough. In reply to the accusation that the Government has spent too much, the parties opposite have been challenged, time and again this past week, to outline where they would make cutbacks. In reply to the accusation that the Government is spending too little, the parties opposite have been challenged to outline the borrowing and the tax increases which they would implement. They have shirked and shied away and we still await their answer. We have not had replies from either leader of the main Opposition parties.
Ireland is suffering the effects of a global economic slowdown. Tax revenue targets are down right across Europe and the US. Although economically we are suffering less than our European neighbours, we are suffering all the same. We have to accept this challenge and manage the economy accordingly in a way which is sustainable and beneficial in the long-term. Our growth rates remain a multiple of the EU average. I was in Portugal last week and both the Prime Minister and President said that they would like to have the same problems as Ireland. It is way above the EU Stability and Growth Pact. That is the legacy of the previous five years. We have maintained jobs, pensions, infrastructure and prosperity. We are well placed to ride out the current challenges.
The Government was re-elected on the basis of its economic record. No Government has made and spread wealth to the same extent. It is imperative that we accept short-term pain for long-term gain. The alternatives are depressing as any of us who were around when Fine Gael and Labour were in power will be aware. There is Sinn Féin economics, which comprise naive mingling of pre-Whitaker protectionism and secondary school Marxism, or the Labour and Fine Gael economic option, which offers only a return to the 1980s.
The Fianna Fáil general election manifesto, which was held aloft earlier by Deputy Burton, states:
We believe that the clear and obvious lesson of the times that Ireland has left behind is that we cannot tax and spend our way to employment and better services. In fact, the surest way to cause unemployment and undermine the public finances would be to implement unsustainable spending plans or to try to return to the days of high taxation.
This policy received a resounding mandate in the May election. The programme for Government reiterated that we would keep the public finances in a healthy condition. That is what we are doing and will continue to do. We will simply not allow the finances to deteriorate as they were allowed to do in the past. Writing in the late 1980s Professor Joe Lee, asserted: "It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Irish economic performance has been the least impressive in western Europe, perhaps in all Europe, in the 20th century". Since 1987 that has changed. Despite the global economic downturn the economy is stable. Unemployment is low while growth is relatively high and the economic fundamentals are sound. It is our job to keep it that way and Fianna Fáil will ensure that is the case in years to come.
I wish to share time with Deputy English.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I bow and thank the Minister for the crumbs he has given to Monaghan, about which he has made such a song and dance.
Monaghan was well looked after. I had to intervene to make sure the application was a good one. County Monaghan led it.
Exactly. The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs asked us to face reality. However, part of the problem is that some of us faced reality and did not make promises that could not be delivered. For example, 5,000 FÁS workers face a sad Christmas following the reduction in community employment scheme places. These are people on the lowest rung of the employment ladder who had a slight hope of gaining full-time employment. Funding for flood relief was reduced in the Book of Estimates by 99%, yet when the Taoiseach walked around Drumcondra on Friday morning he announced an immediate U-turn. A similar U-turn did not take place when farms in the Shannon Basin and County Monaghan were flooded and animals were kept indoors for months.
The Ombudsman's budget was cut by 14%, yet salaries for those working for the planning tribunal were increased by 125% because the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform made sure he looked after his own. Funding for regional county roads was reduced by 27% while funding for urban regeneration was reduced by 59%. The message being sent to rural Ireland is there will be no bypasses built in areas like my own.
Our economic position has changed dramatically over the past few months but while the Government was aware there was a downturn, the Minister for Finance said there was no danger and there would be no cutbacks or adjustments. The allocation to community and voluntary services has been reduced by 16% while the funding of CLÁR has been cut by 25% even though it was promised that its allocation was guaranteed for two years. The western development fund has been cut by 68% while the farm assist scheme was also hit. There was a major information deficit in regard to this scheme, resulting in farmers not knowing about it, yet no increase has been provided in the Book of Estimates.
The funding for family income supplement has been reduced by 18% while employment support services funding is down 31%. Will the Book of Estimates prop up the underdogs in society? The allocation for forestry has been reduced by 22%. Does that mean there will be no more planting this year? We were informed yesterday that young saplings would be burnt off. The funding for Teagasc, the advice service for farmers, has been cut by 13% while Bord Bia's support has also been cut by 13%. Funding for REPS, a scheme in which farmers placed a great deal of hope to help them run efficient, environmentally friendly farms, has decreased by 19%. This is some message for rural Ireland. Even the money available for the farm retirement pension has been cut by 5%.
However, the worst measure that has been taken in regard to rural Ireland is the 44% reduction in funding for agricultural development under the national development plan. The Minister for Agriculture and Food, who has the proud record of closing five agricultural colleges in three years, is—
The Deputy will be aware that fewer students were participating in courses.
There is no incentive for young farmers.
We have to send our young farmers to the Deputy's part of the world.
Given that the Minister is from Donegal she should not turn against farmers. Promises were made that various live export markets would be opened, including the Egyptian market. The only load of beef exported to Egypt was sent prior to the election and it was subsidised.
It was sent from Waterford.
The Minister for Agriculture and Food has told lies, damn lies about the entire situation.
The Deputy should withdraw that remark.
The Deputy will have to withdraw the word "lies".
If I called the Minister a liar, I apologise.
Why does the Government keep getting it wrong?
Just like Meath footballers.
We will make a comeback, unlike the Government.
Meath will have to look to the ladies.
Deputy English, without interruption.
The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources stated that the Government made and spread wealth, but it will be remembered as disappearing wealth. That is why we are facing major cutbacks. I am worried about value for money, not spending money without getting results.
Is it possible the post of Minister of Finance is the only job one can hold where if one gets it wrong, one is allowed to publish a Book of Estimates which robs certain sections of the community of their basic human rights to make up for one's short-sightedness and mismanagement? The Minister has misused his position of power and blatantly promoted self-gain for himself and his political party. When he misled or misread the public finances, he decided to rob Peter to pay Paul. We have a duty to look after the people, but the Government has not done so.
We all have the right to expect decent health care and to expect our children to be educated in their communities in a heated, well-equipped classroom and not stand in line waiting for a chair, never mind a suitable classroom, whether we are rich or poor. There are many people in my constituency and throughout the country who cannot attend local schools because they have not been built. There is a shortage of schools, the schools that have been built are falling apart and prefabricated units are used instead. Despite this, the funding for schools building projects has been cut. That will do nothing to resolve the problem.
The Book of Estimates is a bloody disgrace and we are having this debate as a result of the mismanagement of the public finances. It is a blatant attempt to keep the better off section of the electorate happy. They have been targeted at the expense of the needy, poor and sick and the education of our children. Do not misunderstand me. One cannot spend what one does not have. The figures printed in the Estimates are probably the most this country can afford at present without admitting that we have to borrow. How in God's name have we arrived at this financial situation? That is what really gets up my nose.
Why did first-time buyers have to suffer the loss of their grant when certain sections of our population, who directly benefited from our over-spending policy, could afford to give something back? Why must we hand over millions to the health service? I have no problem with giving millions to the health service but why do we have to do it? That service has been given "millions and millions", in the words of the Minister for Finance, since 1997. Why must we still do it? It is because we did not get value for money. Millions were squandered with no results. We have seen nothing for them.
The Minister said during the week that he is only paid to do one job, that of Minister for Finance. Surely, however, his conscience should not allow him to hand over such vast sums of money to Departments which have either, according to himself, been mismanaged or incompetent. It must be part of his brief to have some form of control over the money he is dishing out. It is a pity the Minister did not take the advice he offered when introducing the special savings scheme. The intent of the scheme was to encourage individuals to save over a period of time. Why did the Minister not adopt the same policy, which he preached so well over the national airwaves, when dealing with the country's finances? Did he not know about economic ups and downs? They happen all the time. That is what economics is about. One cannot be riding high for five years and expect nothing to happen afterwards.
Why are we squandering money on foreign exchange? According to reports, the pensions fund has lost about €1 billion since it was established. Why are we doing this? Again, it is mismanagement of money, throwing good money after bad. That money should be invested in infrastructure which would give a return and provide for pensions in the future. If we had committed even a small portion of the national GDP into savings instead of trying to buy the last election, the Estimates would read differently today. The Estimates only deal with expenditure. What will happen with the money that is due to come into the Exchequer?
These Estimates are the attempt of an accountant with an abacus to balance the nation's books when the country clearly needs a statesman and a man of vision. The cutbacks in the capital expenditure programme are so criminally wrong it is a pity they cannot be referred to a court. What sort of country will we have if we do not invest properly in it? The Taoiseach claimed today that we are spending more money on infrastructure than most of the countries in Europe. He appears not to realise that we are way behind other countries in terms of infrastructural development. We have much ground to cover.
An article in one of the national newspapers some weeks ago drew a comparison between how much it cost to build two kilometres of road, a bridge or a tunnel in Ireland with the cost in the rest of Europe. There was a big difference. It is millions of euro. It is no big deal to say more money is being spent in this country. What matters is results. We are not getting them and these Estimates will not help us get them.
Tá lúcháir orm deis a bheith agam cupla focal a rá faoi na Meastacháin don bhlian seo chugainn agus faoin méid atá déanta ag an Rialtas cheana. Much of the focus has been on those areas where priorities have been re-examined and the Government has adjusted the profile of spending to reflect those priorities. While the Government has had to make choices in relation to spending programmes and the timing of its commitments, it is noteworthy that in the past number of years there has been a huge increase in the level of State resources across a range of areas.
There has been a significant increase in the amounts invested in our schools and hospitals.
Tell that to the people of Monaghan.
Spending on education and health has increased by 77% and 147%, respectively, since 1997.
What did we get for it? The Government blew it.
(Interruptions).
Allow the Minister to speak without interruption.
It probably galls Members of the Opposition to listen to what has been done in the last five years, which is contrary to the indebtedness in which they put the country over the years. The Government has upgraded our infrastructure, with capital investment almost 170% above its level in 1997.
How much did a house cost then?
Considerable effort has gone into massive improvements in the level and quality of public services in recent years. The Government will continue to seek to upgrade our services and infrastructure over the course of its lifetime.
One commentator has likened this year's Estimates publication to the first act of a two act play, with the budget as the second act. The truth is that the publication of the Estimates is but one further episode of a long running epic in which the Government has managed to combine reduced taxation with improved services and the commitment of much needed resources dedicated to modernising the country's infrastructure.
As my colleague, the Minister for Finance, has announced, next year's spending will be over €31 billion compared to €17 billion in 1997. If we focus on the recently published Estimates alone, we lose sight of the massive increases in resources the Government has put into improving the level and range of public services. I will return to that theme when I discuss my Department's Estimates. Before that, I wish to put the Estimates into a proper economic context.
Economic growth in many developed economies has slowed in 2002 and economists are not optimistic about the outlook for 2003. This has led to budgetary problems in other countries, so it is not just Ireland which has been affected by the economic slowdown. Compared with what we have been accustomed to, the growth in national income will remain relatively subdued next year. The Government has taken this into account in framing the Estimates for 2003. There is no doubt that the worsening economic situation has made the Estimates process more difficult than at any time in recent years. Tax revenues have been lower than expected while spending pressures have increased. However, like any household faced with changed circumstances, the Government has faced up to its task and made hard choices to get back to a sustainable rate of spending growth.
And hit the poor.
The benefits of recent economic growth have been invested in widening and deepening the level of social protection which our society offers to citizens. Across a range of programmes and schemes, the fruit of our economic growth is clearly visible. The Government has massively increased spending on social welfare in recent years, from €5.7 billion in 1997 to an estimated €9.7 billion in 2003, an increase of 70% even before provision is made for rate increases and other changes to be announced in the budget. This rise in spending has more than outstripped inflation, resulting in significantly higher social welfare spending in real terms.
It is a long time since the Minister has been shopping.
This has led to significant improvements for a broad range of social welfare customers, far more than the Opposition ever thought it could achieve. Pension rates for older people have increased dramatically. Significant increases were also provided in the rate of QAA for pensioners where the qualified adult is 66 years or over. As a result of Government policy, the personal rate of old age contributory pension has increased by nearly 50%. Widow's contributory pension for people aged 66 years and over has been increased by 50%.
Since 1997, general social welfare increases have been well ahead of inflation. The personal rate of payment for most recipients has increased by at least 37% and the corresponding rate for a couple has increased by over 44%. In addition, the Government provided for additional special increases for persons with disability, such as a disregard of €120 of earnings for rehabilitative employment for persons on DA, blind pension and SWA.
Why are they being forced off it now?
A new farm assist scheme, specially designed for lower income farmers, was introduced in 1999. Social welfare clients have been paid their increases for the full 52 weeks of the year, as compared to 29 weeks under the rainbow Government. The level of child benefit has increased by nearly €98 to €117.60 for the first two children and €147.30 for the third and subsequent children, respectively,—
It was paid the week before the election.
—helping all parents with the cost of caring for their children as well as representing a major move towards achieving the goal of eradicating child poverty.
Underlying the Estimates published last week was a rise in social welfare spending of 3.5% next year, compared with the 2002 Estimates, bringing the pre-budget Estimates for spending to a total of €9.7 billion. This compares with an increase of 2% in total public spending—
Less than inflation.
—underlying the Government's commitment to protect the weak and vulnerable in our society.
What about the 5,000 people on FÁS schemes?
Furthermore, this increase does not take into account additional social welfare increases to be announced in the budget, which will seek to protect the real value of social welfare payments for those who are dependent upon them. By protecting the level of spending on social welfare, the Government has shown a clear sign that it is committed to building on the dramatic social progress that has taken place in recent years. Underlying this rise in total spending are increases across a range of spending programmes. Child benefit will rise by €100 million, driven mainly by the very significant increases provided in recent budgets, which apply for the full year 2003.
Not in the last budget.
The Deputy does not appreciate child benefit but he will have his day. One never knows, there might be a little Crawford somewhere.
I hope so.
Spending on old age contributory and retirement pensions will rise by €49 million, driven by the overall increase in the number of people qualifying for contributory pensions, as is also due to the ageing profile of our population. SWA spending will rise by €75 million due to a range of factors, including increased expenditure on basic SWA payments, increases in once-off exceptional needs payments and particular increases in the rent supplement. The increased expenditure on rent supplement arises both from increases in the level of rents and increases in the number of people claiming rent supplement.
I have not had enough time during this debate to impress upon Opposition Members the value we place on caring for the underprivileged.
The Government has had five years – it is more than enough time.
In the budget, the Government will have an opportunity to make additional progress in allowing the fruits of our economic growth to be shared equally. I commend the Estimates to the House.
Debate adjourned.