POLITICAL FIGURES in Clare have expressed mixed reactions to Budget 2025.
Senator Roisin Garvey (GP) said the Budget focused on improving the lives of our children, families and the environment while also planning and providing for the future. She said both she and Minister for Children, Roderic O’Gorman (GP) for the ‘baby boost payment’ which will see €420 paid to new parents on the birth of their child from January.
Inagh native Garvey stated, “I think it is really great news that the retrofit scheme low-income households will have a budget of €240m or ten times higher than it was in 2020. This means that more funding than has ever will be available to make homes warmer, healthier, more comfortable and less expensive to heat. We have also got a payment of €4,000 for small businesses based on their rateable valuation and I was delighted to get this across the line. We may be a small party but we have had a big impact on Budget 2025”.
Clare TD, Violet-Anne Wynne (IND) said the Budget failed to acknowledge the extent of the health crisis in Ireland. “This government is, yet again, more concerned about the press potential of promises than acknowledging the desperate needs on the ground. We have been seeing this the whole way along as we witness the children’s hospital balloon out of control, as the recruitment embargo became a ceiling which still has the fundamental effect of preventing recruitment – anything for good press, and curse the people calling them out for it”.
She said, “I am disappointed in what this Budget promises for health. We have seen so many in the Chamber finally admit the Mid-West are getting left behind in terms of healthcare, but so little commitment to remedying that. I was truly hoping for some measure to ringfence funding for a Model 3 Hospital but again, this government was more concerned with soundbites than meaningful action”.
General Election candidate, Leonora Carey (FG) believed the Budget showed that Fine Gael valued the role family carers “Fine Gael is supporting carers, foster parents, and those with disabilities by increasing allowances, support grants and lump sum payments. Carers will receive a significant package including an increase in the carer support grant to €2000”.
She added, “We are also supporting people with disabilities, by increasing the domiciliary care allowance (DCA) for children with disabilities by €20. This will help support carers for children with a severe disability. Minister Humphreys has spearheaded major package for people with disabilities with a €400 cost of living lump sum payment for people getting disability allowance, invalidity pension and blind pension to be paid in November 2024”.
Budget 2025 “does nothing to alleviate the frustrations of parents whose kids have special needs, the hospitality sector that is collapsing across the country and the farming sector where massive increases in the cost of doing business have not been realistically addressed,” said Eddie Punch (II).
According to the Cratloe man who is also contesting the General Election, “The problem is that this government has presided over massive squandering of taxpayers’ money and ignored the need for value for money. The health sector is getting a further massive increase in funding to €25 billion. But there is a disgraceful failure to provide on-time assessments for autism and early intervention therapies for special needs kids. This is cruel and unacceptable because it is well understood that early intervention therapies (speech and language, occupational etc) are life transforming. Delays of years in delivering these will impact children for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, the HSE still leaves those in need of scoliosis operations in agony. The failure to listen to the hospitality sector is baffling in relation to the 9% VAT rate ask. We have seen some 700 catering outlets closed in Ireland in the last year and Clare is badly affected. Tourism matters to Clare but it isn’t just about tourism – it is central to the social fabric of towns and villages across the county and I fear that this decision will lead to more and more closures of pubs, restaurants and cafes in Clare.
“While I welcome the increased rates for farming schemes like the beef and sheep welfare schemes, the reality is that the farming sector has never been more despondent. The reality is that payments of €25/ewe come nowhere near addressing the costs of inputs like diesel, feed and fertiliser and general farm hardware. We can’t ignore the fact that increases in carbon tax are driving increased costs, directly for farm operations like silage cutting and indirectly on all deliveries to and from the farm,” he added.
