With the Ceann Comhairle's permission, I am sharing time with our new Deputy Kyne.

Sentiment score: 0.42

Yes. I congratulate the Deputy on his success. I join in some of the comments made about the carbon tax and I ask the Minister of State if he thinks we are getting value for money from it. Does he think it should be tailored to ensure there are not the types of increases faced through the carbon tax, and to divvy up the money raised from a lower amount of taxation? One of the issues that has come to the fore from the fuel protest and so on, is that enormous taxes are being taken from fuel throughout the country by the Government. It has reached the point of being absolutely unacceptable. I agree with the suggestion that relief should be given at the pumps. Everyone would have benefitted from that, and it would be an easy scheme to administer. The individuals who go to work and are hard-pressed would benefit from it. While the diesel rebate scheme and others put in place on the agri side are welcome, we cannot forget the people we represent. I refer particularly to pensioners and those on low pay who are feeling the squeeze because of the cost-of-living crisis. We have to ensure there is some benefit for those people in whatever action we take. I think all who have spoken in this debate have mentioned that we know someone who cannot buy home heating oil. We know people who have cut back on their grocery bills. They cannot afford some of the prices being charged in supermarkets and shops. There is a need to examine the costs in all of these supermarkets and at the petrol pump to ensure there is not price gouging going on. Insurance costs have gone up. Commercial rates have gone up. Planning charges have gone up and the small to medium size businesses are being crucified once again. This is the sector we say employs up to 1 million people. These are the homegrown people who base their business on a family input and are the people we rely on. We seem to have abandoned that whole sector and walked away from it. The cost of fuel at the pumps needs to be addressed. The cost of home heating oil has to be addressed. The USC and tax bands need to be addressed. The USC was supposed to be temporary. I remember the late Brian Lenihan telling us all of that in this House. That is not the case. We need to reform the tax bands for workers to ensure they take home more to meet the various costs they are challenged by in their own homes. However, when the costs are added together and you move from the home to the SME sector you are destroying the local economy that keeps the shops open in villages and towns all over the country and in the high streets of Ireland. There is not enough said about these costs in this House. There is not enough action taken outside of this debate to ensure the businesses that are threatened and being challenged by current costs are kept open. We are not doing enough for them. We speak enough about them and praise them enough, yet when it comes to action I am afraid we fall far short of what is required. One of the areas I am concerned about is the work of Comptroller and Auditor General and the costs that are spiralling for the children's hospital and in almost every project you can think of, without being challenged in a robust way by any of the committees of this House. It is not that they do not want to do it. I am sure they would like to do it but, unfortunately, we are told their hands are tied, although that is not the case. We in this House have a job to do. We must work to ensure that every Secretary General and civil servant is made accountable to this House. We need reform to ensure that where we do not get value for money, where there are inefficiencies in the system and where public money is obviously being wasted, following scrutiny and due process, action is taken with regard to those who were central to the loss of funds to the Government or to the inefficiencies I have outlined. I remember going to a state in Africa as Chairman of the public accounts committee to look for €4 million that had to be accounted for. When we visited the schools supported by money from the Irish Government, the children and the teachers were counting the pencils and the jotters, as they called them, to account for the money they spent, but the comptroller and auditor general in that country was driving a very big Mercedes and was subject to very little obvious accountability. We need to examine all of that. We need to empower our own Committee of Public Accounts and Comptroller and Auditor General to ensure we get real value for money. It is not happening. I am beginning to receive huge complaints from people who are now more in tune with what is going on, or not going on, in Government. They see this waste and are appalled by it. It is a national disgrace that this is allowed to continue but successive governments have failed to introduce any real radical reform, or structural reform, to address these issues. Can the Minister of State imagine how much money we would have at budget time if we had a more efficient and accountable system, one that did not lose as much as the current system does? I know that it is a risk. I know decisions are risky. However, factoring all of that into how the State is managed, we see the same results: poor value for money and not enough attention being given to developing the Civil Service to a point where it is at the top of its game in relation to all of this. I ask the Minister of State to reflect on what has been said and to factor in the fact that it has been said more than once. He has heard all of this from me more than once. I ask him to do something about it within Government and within our own party because, as far as I can see, no one is listening.

Sentiment score: 0.04