Of course, Deputy Doherty chose not to start today, in his question about our economy and the budget, with the economic figures that have been published in the past hour, which show that, thanks to sensible and careful management, we have an economy that is performing well. We see modified domestic demand, which is pretty much a good proxy for domestic economic activity, growing by 5% annually for the third year. We see consumer spending remaining good, with record solid growth of 2.5%. We see investment in building and construction contributing positively to growth in the third quarter, and we see activity in the sector expanding by close to 9% annually. That is what we want to see at a time when we want to build more homes and infrastructure. We see employment growth as well and an economy doing well in a very challenging environment. It is against this backdrop that we will continue to pursue sensible economic policies. It is not that long ago since we had high unemployment in this country and people felt they could not get a job. It is not that long ago since we had ghost estates in this country. It is not that long ago since we had to seek help from others to keep the economy running. That is why we will continue to run budget surpluses. It is why we will continue to put money into funds to protect the economy from any shocks, despite Deputy Doherty objecting to the legislation to establish those funds. It is why we will continue to be prudent and sensible in the time ahead. The Deputy continually comes to this House and does two things. First, he suggests that everything said during an election campaign and stated in a programme for Government must be implemented immediately. The people of Ireland are not stupid.
Sentiment score: 0.24
The Deputy’s cacophony of assistance here is great. What was implied is obviously not reflective of how a programme for Government works. To the people at home, I say we have a programme for Government that commits to what we are going to do over five years. It is a published document, available on gov.ie. We have only delivered budget one of five. The Deputy will be pleased to know there will be another four. He will be 19 years delivering his ripostes to our budgets by the end of this Dáil term. We will deliver four more budgets. In the most recent budget, which the Deputy again fails to acknowledge, we have already taken a number of measures to assist people with the cost of living, and we have tried to target those most in need, which I believed the Deputy might support. For example, we introduced the largest ever increase in the child support payment, under the Minister, Deputy Calleary. It is a targeted measure to help low-income families and children most in need. We have extended the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance to preschool children, helping those children most in need and their parents with the cost of going to preschool. We have increased the domiciliary care allowance. We have expanded eligibility for student grants under the Minister, Deputy Lawless, meaning more families are benefiting. We have continued with the roll-out of free schoolbooks and free hot meals. All these measures assist families with the cost of living in the here and now. We have expanded the working family payment so more families can qualify. We have increased the State pension. As we speak today, people right across the country are seeing the benefit of the Christmas bonus. This initiative, which costs around €370 million from the budget, is to assist pensioners, carers, people with a disability, those on low incomes and vulnerable people. We will see further expansions to the fuel allowance. We have reduced the VAT rate applying to energy costs to 9%, permanently, or certainly for many years to come. These are practical measures. The Minister for children will update the Government this month on an action plan on childcare. This week, as Deputy Doherty will be glad to know because he is very worried about this, as he should be because it is a big issue, the Minister announced a capital plan that will see a very significant level of funding for State-led childcare facilities. I am sure the Deputy welcomes this. It is a welcome development. We will commit, with Deputy Doherty and everyone in this House, to delivering during the lifetime of the Government the kind of childcare system on which I believe there is almost a consensus. Childcare is not just a social issue but is now a real economic one as well. The Deputy should please not continue to come into this House and misrepresent what the Government is doing. The Government has taken action to stimulate housing supply. It has taken action through the budget to help in respect of jobs in rural and regional Ireland, in towns and villages including in County Donegal in the hospitality sector. We have also taken measures to help people with the cost of living, starting with those most in need. The Deputy can be assured we will fulfil the remaining programme for Government commitments over the next four budgets.
Sentiment score: 0.28
It is not mine.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Angry Pearse.
Sentiment score: -0.51
You can debate the use of the word "sensible", Pearse, but one thing is for sure, no one would ever call you "Prudent Pearse". Had we followed the economic plans of Deputy Doherty's party, God knows where we would be. He has some cheek, coming into this House and raising the issue of college fees, because I am sitting beside a Minister for higher education who has permanently reduced fees and will continue to do so in the time ahead.
Sentiment score: 0.21
Deputy Doherty took to social media yesterday. He will probably recognise the First Minister and leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, Michelle O'Neill, in the picture I am holding up.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Yesterday, on its social media account, Sinn Féin heralded the fact that it had managed to freeze fees at £4,855-----
Sentiment score: 0.05
-----and put this up on its social media as though it was good news. It is more than twice what students in this jurisdiction pay.
Sentiment score: 0.17
Sinn Féin are hypocrites and phoney. Your faux outrage, Angry Pearse, does not convince anybody.
Sentiment score: -0.40
We are reducing fees in this jurisdiction. Fees in the North are more than double, and Sinn Féin thought to take to social media to say this was great news. Sinn Féin are hypocrites. People see through it and that is why they are sitting over there, giving out, rather than actually being in government, because they have no credibility on this. They say one thing here and do the exact opposite in Northern Ireland. Shame.
Sentiment score: 0.03
I agree with the Deputy that we obviously need to get more gardaí on our streets. We need to recruit and train more gardaí. The Deputy has made some suggestions as to how he thinks that can be done and I will come back to that in a moment. I need to make a few points about the level of investment we are now making in the Garda budget to empower the Garda Commissioner and Garda authorities to increase the numbers. We have a Garda budget of €2.59 billion for next year. This will fund recruitment of up to 1,000 new gardaí and 200 more Garda staff and also a doubling of the Garda Reserve to over 600 next year. We have run two Garda recruitment campaigns in 2025 and we have seen more than 11,000 applications to join An Garda Síochána received this year. There is genuinely a sense when I talk to the Minister and Garda authorities, as the Deputy can probably see himself, that there is some momentum with the number of people going into Templemore, though I admit it has been a challenging number of years. We saw, for example, 194 gardaí attested last week. This brings the total number of newly attested gardaí so far this year to 617. We saw 223 trainees enter Templemore in the last couple of weeks as well. This was the largest intake in Templemore since 2014, so the largest intake in 11 years. We have seen 794 trainees enter Templemore so far this year, which is the most since 2018. There are larger attestations, the largest training classes going on and the largest number of people overall training in Templemore in many years. As of October this year, which is the latest month for which numbers are available, there are a total of 14,290 gardaí across the State. For comparison, in 2015, there were 12,816. There are now 3,487 Garda staff, which obviously helps to free up gardaí to put them on front-line duties as well. The Deputy asked specifically about the Garda training allowance and pension. I hear these issues too. I was in Coolock Garda station not too long ago. This discussion came up last year too. I need to say that all of these matters are for discussion and engagement through normal processes, public pay processes and the likes, rather than for me to give loose commitments on the floor of the Dáil. Specifically on the third point, about Garda capital, I know the Minister for justice had approval at Cabinet this week for the Garda sectoral plan, as part of the sectoral investment plan in justice. That will see a significant increase in the number of Garda stations being constructed in the time ahead. I am conscious of the point the Deputy makes and I will talk to the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, about this, particularly with the fast-growing populations around Swords, Donabate and the likes, and the particular need for additional infrastructure there. I will ask the Minister to come back on that.
Sentiment score: 0.19
I acknowledge the point the Deputy makes, and do not want to jump over it, that it is not now an issue of shortage of money. It used to be. It is an issue now where we are actually able to invest properly, but that also means that we need to look at the processes. If 11,000 people put up their hand and say they want to join An Garda Síochána, the Minister for justice and the Garda Commissioner are eager to make sure that the pipeline is as efficient as possible in taking expressions of interest to join An Garda Síochána, robustly vetting and training those individuals and then having them on the streets, serving the people of this country and keeping people safe as well. There are some signs of positivity in Garda recruitment at the moment, albeit admitting that, with the closure of the college twice during Covid and the financial crash, there was lost time, which caused significant disruption. We have also made changes to the recruitment age, the maximum age at which someone can join An Garda Síochána and the retirement age, and we have seen some positive effects from that too. I will take the points the Deputy made back to the Minister for his conversation with the Garda Commissioner about matching investment in Garda stations and population growth. It is not an unfair point. Many parts of this country are growing much more quickly than other parts. The other issues of how to improve incentivisation for recruitment and retention are matters for the normal engagement and industrial relations.
Sentiment score: 0.27
Disability issues and disability services are an absolute priority for this Government. That is why one of the things the Deputy will have seen published in the past number of months was the new national human rights strategy for disabled people, which is a really good piece of work. A huge amount of work was done with representative groups and with people with disabilities directly. It is a Government strategy that involves all parts of government. Because the Deputy has raised it, I will deal with it directly. He raised a very specific issue in relation to costs. It is a very valid and important issue. All aspects of how the State's policies interact with people with a disability respect their human rights and enable them to live their lives. We took a number of decisions on permanent increases in this budget. We were always very clear that we were moving away from the temporary measures that were brought in at a time inflation was extraordinarily high. We were very clear on that and we have to be clear on it because we have to make sure that we move back to a regular rhythm of an annual budget with clear parameters that works. As part of that, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Calleary, specifically increased the disability allowance, increased the domiciliary care allowance and made improvements to payments for carers as well. I agree with the Deputy, the Minister agrees with him and the Government as a whole agrees with him on the importance of a cost-of-disability payment. I am pleased to tell him that there was a meeting as recently as this week where groups representing people with a disability were in with the Department of Social Protection to discuss the work on designing that payment. That is something that the Minister, Deputy Calleary, is leading on, something on which he will have the support of Government as well. We also made another change so that people who are leaving the disability allowance to move into employment are able to retain their fuel allowance, something people had sought for quite a period of time. This is the week in which the Christmas bonus is being played out. It is the last of the direct one-off cost-of-living payments to help people at this period. It is being paid out to people in receipt of disability allowance and indeed other payments too. The budget did, though, make a very big investment in disabilities. Even organisations have accepted this in other areas. In the capital budget for disability to deliver the specialist disability infrastructure that we need across the country, the respite facilities, the residential homes, the multidisciplinary teams, we have seen a doubling of the current capital levels. We had €278 million announced in terms of disability services in the capital plan only this week. Quite rightly we also saw a very significant increase in the level of funding for disability services in the HSE with hundreds of millions of euro extra in funding provided. It was one of the largest areas of increase in the budget but I accept and Government accepts the work on the permanent cost-of-disability payment is an important piece of work. We are engaging collaboratively on that with groups, organisations and people with a disability. I know it is something that the Minister, Deputy Calleary, will be working on in the months ahead.
Sentiment score: 0.33
The Minister, Deputy Calleary, is eager to work collaboratively and is eager to engage with the Social Democrats and others on the composition of a cost-of-disability payment, what it looks like and who qualifies. He will engage with the Deputy and others on that. I have provided a status update in the sense that that work is under way with groups in the Department of Social Protection this week specifically on the issue of a cost-of-disability payment; I welcome that. I accept that it is something that has been discussed and debated in this country for a significant period. However, I would push back somewhat on the idea that the budget did not prioritise disability services because as the figures clearly show, there were a number of areas where we quite rightly took a conscious decision to significantly increase the level of funding to our disability services. We are seeing the benefits of that now in some areas, including CDNTs and the numbers of staff on them. The Deputy asked when we would listen; we are listening. He asked when we would engage; we are engaging. We want to work in collaboration with representative groups. Indeed, we would welcome the Deputy's own input as we seek to design the payment.
Sentiment score: 0.43
I do not remember the Deputy welcoming budgets where we brought in cost-of-living measures before the election. He is kind of opining wishing we had the budgets of the past number of years. I do not remember him ever supporting measures we brought into this House over the past several years to try and assist people at a time of extraordinarily high levels of inflation. The Deputy seeks to slag Paschal Donohoe, whose view I would take on the economy more seriously than his, for his views and call them nonsense. There is a reason the World Bank hired him. It is because he knows a few things about economics.
Sentiment score: 0.10
Surely, the Deputy would acknowledge that, while we would like to see inflation fall further, that inflation both in Ireland and in the eurozone is at a much lower level than it was when those cost-of-living packages were brought in. The inflation was off the Richter scale for a period. It may be the Deputy's position, and in fairness to him I think it is as he is quite clear about it, that he wants to have two annual budgets effectively - a budget that runs from now to Christmas and then another budget that runs next year. We cannot run the economy like that. We just cannot; it is not sustainable. We have to get back to an annual budget and that is what we said we were going to do, and that is what we have done this year. The Deputy talked about a cold winter. I am really conscious that people look in on this from home. I want to talk to those people and for them to know there are a number of measures in place to help people with energy poverty this winter. If someone is an older person living alone, this week, he or she will, quite rightly, have received a double payment of their State pension. Older people will receive the fuel allowance, which is now up to over €1,000 a year. That fuel allowance is due to go up again in the new year. They will see the household benefit package in terms of that cost coming off their energy bill, which is worth over €400, during this period. We have reduced the VAT rate which other parties proposed allowing that go back up including some who thought the rate should go back up in April. We did not do that. We have extended that for quite number of years more. I know we have different political views, but the Deputy makes these snide comments saying all we care about is helping the multinationals. Did he see the Exchequer returns yesterday? What does he want us to do - send the jobs and the money back, somewhere else? We are very proud to be a Government that is pro-enterprise, and we are going to continue to pursue policies to keep jobs in Ireland, to keep revenue in Ireland, because that is helping to fund the country. It is helping to provide so many employment opportunities, including in the Deputy's constituency. He is getting very close to the "Ah, sure, send them all away" brigade. We need to continue to make sure we support policies in this country that attract the jobs because there are many people in the Deputy's constituency and mine that got in a car this morning and drove to work in one of those multinationals that he dismisses our support for as though it is irrelevant. He also mentioned our support for "developers". He likes to call them "developers" because that is, in his view, a dirty word. I like to call them people who build houses and people who build houses in a housing emergency. It is a serious point. Deputy Murphy can laugh and have his little ideological view of the world-----
Sentiment score: 0.25
-----but we need to build apartments. All of the decisions we take are to protect jobs because that is how we keep people in employment, and it is also how we run the country in terms of funding public services and we also make sure we can stimulate the building of houses and apartments in this country. These are good things to do. However, I want people with a disability to know, as I have directly said in reply to Deputy O'Callaghan, unlike Deputy Murphy's comment, that we have not abandoned anything. Work is under way on a cost-of-disability payment and as recently as this week organisations representing people with a disability did not need to stand outside the gates, they were in the Department helping engage on this very payment.
Sentiment score: 0.42
Except when you say it. When you say it you are such a wise sage.
Sentiment score: 0.24
No, the point I am making is very clear. The Deputy stands up and makes snide remarks about supporting multinationals or snide remarks about supporting developers.
Sentiment score: 0.44
I make the point that is about supporting jobs and building homes. That is the difference between the Deputy's ideology and ours. He is proud of that difference and I am proud of that as well. We have a different view in on this. The multinational jobs in this country are important. They help to actually fund through income and corporation taxes the running of this State and it is a bloody good thing we have them. We need to work to continue to make sure we attract investment in to this country, particularly at such a volatile time. Does the Deputy know how to make people poorer in the country? You make people poorer by continuing to go along in the hope that everything is grand and wake up one day and realise that, actually, the fiscal vulnerabilities that in the paper that I published yesterday in the Department of Finance have come to be realised.
Sentiment score: 0.28
We are not planning on opening the budget process again because we are delivering one annual budget. Within the context of the budget we delivered, we have delivered a progressive budget. The budget documentation shows it is a progressive budget, helping those most in need over those who have the most. That is the budget we ran. That is the budgetary process and we will continue to run progressive budgets. In the context of that we have made a number of decisions to increase weekly supports to people with a disability and invest significantly in services for people with a disability. Work is under way on the development of a cost-of-disability payment and we want to work in partnership with representative groups and political parties on getting that right.
Sentiment score: 0.20