Victor Boyhan Critiques Budget 2026, Urges Evidence-Based Reform

First, I want to welcome the Minister and thank you for your commitment to come to the House this afternoon and give a few words for engagement and debate. You are always welcome. I would also like to thank your staff. That is something we sometimes forget in here that are behind all good Ministers and departments or good staff who give the technical support to you and to others in the formation of any Budget and that is a really key important component of all this process. At the very outset, I would like to acknowledge the publication of this Budget and brief your guide to the Budget 2026. The idea that if we had the money and the resources, talking about budgets, we should have it in every household. I certainly took the liberty of sending the link to many, many hundreds of people last night. I think it touches on issues, it does not cover all of them, it does not drill down on many of the specifics, but it gives you headings that you could then chase up afterwards. I suppose what was critically important, and I want to welcome many aspects, and I want my contribution to be positive as much as it can be, but I wanted to point out some concerns that I would have. I recognise the importance of the National Development Plan and the critical role out of our infrastructure for housing, for the economy, for employment, for sustainability and all of that, and I think that is really important. I would flag at this point that we can talk all we like about housing, but we do need to see the Government's Housing for All, or some iteration of its housing policy. That continues to be pushed back, pushed back, pushed back. I know you are not the Minister, so I do not expect you Minister to apply today, but I would like just to flag, I think it is about time now we saw the new national housing policy or document that the Government intend to operate and roll out for the term in office. Next I want to acknowledge the very significant work of the Parliamentary Budget Office. For those who had an opportunity to meet them today, I think they would have found it very meaningful. They are an extraordinary body of work, and one of the great things about a democratic parliament like ours is that we have this independent validation, scrutiny, analysis of the finances of Government budgets. And so of course, yesterday they completed some work, and I want it in a very timely fashion, and that is something I want to acknowledge. We know that the role and functions of the Parliamentary Budget Office, the objective is to advise the Oireachtas, not the Ministers, not the Department, but the Oireachtas members, the Shanna Dauri and the TDs, so I think that is important. I want to just raise a number of issues with you in relation to the budget. I am not going into detail, you are the Minister, you are in Government, you know the budget, and I think they do emphasise a number of issues, and I am going to quote here for the record of the House, in Chapter 6 they talk about the budgetary policy, a weak evidence base. Informed policy making involves the production and research of accumulative evidence to support decision making. Politicians are required to weigh various considerations when determining what policies to pursue. It is therefore important that they are supported in the process, and I think that is really important. I think when you get to the end of it, there are some key issues that are raising concern, and I want to share them with you, Minister, here today. They say, therefore, it was not possible to assess the degree of which these categories in the budget are under others or key policies, adjustments or exemptions of services or compromise funding in new measures. They say, for example, the ELS is underestimated for a department. It would mean that funding is insufficient to fund new measures. Identify some key issues, and it says this in summary, and this is for the document for the House, and I will submit it anyway to the stenographers later. It does not support the evidence-based policies approach, which should be at the very heart of policy analysis and development. It does not indicate the space available for new measures being undertaken. This is our budget. This budget laid before the House. It does not include the space available for new measures being undertaken. It makes budget scrutiny more difficult for members of the Oirectis and the public in general. The lack of consistency in responding to ELS makes year-to-year analysis difficult. It does not enable medium and long-term planning with the trajectory of public expenditure considerations around the sustainability of our public finances. The PBO reiterates its recommendations made in the pre-budget of 2025 and now made some additional recommendations. They are the reintroduction of ELS measures and the budget documentation to provide clarity on the available space for new measures. The publication of a comprehensive, efficient methodology required. The integration of such transparent, evidence-based ELS estimates into the annual budgetary process. The consistency or presentation of ELS estimates with clear breakdowns of components of the budget expenditure report. Then it goes on comparing these long-term expenditure projections with long-term revenue projects in order to assess the long-term fiscal sustainability of our public finances. Minister, that is there for everyone to see and I am concerned and I think we need to look at that and we need to take that advice further because that is what the Parliamentary Budgetary Office is telling us. That is not me, say. Just a few issues that I want to touch basically for the last three minutes of my time. The Disability Federation of Ireland and others, including the Irish Wheelchair Association, say there is a betrayal of disabled people in terms of the support they were looking for. I would share some of the concerns, but I do accept there has been support for them and I think really the answer to go forward, and I heard some documentary by the Minister, Pascal Donoghue, where he talked, there is now a desire, I do not come criticising all the time, but there is now a desire to set out a pathway over the next two to three years of how we are going to address issues in relation to disability, how we are also going to set out issues in relation to the carers' allowance, the means testing, I know it is planned to do it over a period, but I think now is the time to set out the pathway of that, so people understand what they might expect next year, and I want to be positive about that. I recognise that there is a concern. Micheál Martin, when he was addressing the Disabled Federation of Ireland, said the system is not delivering for disabled people. We can and we will do better, says Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the National Economic Dialogue, and I think he has commissioned that and I do not doubt that. I do not doubt the Government's commitment, but I understand the difficulties in terms of the fiscal space, so I think there is a pathway to that. In relation to agriculture, the IFA submitted a very detailed submission, a 2026 submission, and I think there are two concerns. There is some serious concern in relation to the residential zone land tax, and I know it is pushed out for a year, but I would like if we could get a briefing note, Minister, on that. Not necessarily today, but if we could be provided with a briefing note, where are we in relation to the residential zone land tax, where are we in relation to farmers that are actively using these lands for farming? I think that is important. I know that is the other edge, we want to catch lands that have been abandoned or left. If we could have a briefing memo on that to the House, I think that would be really important. I finish with a positive sort of endorsement of the Government's commitment to local government, and of course John Cummins, who is the Minister with Pacific Responsibility in this area, so the funding is £801 million, an increase of £117 million, and that has to be good, that has to be positive, and it has to be welcomed. There is this talk about addressing that money will feed in, of course, to the equalisation payments, the LPT, supporting local government IT, investment in that area, upskilling of both the staff, issues around the Board Planola, funding, planning, IT, all of that. I think that is all very, very important. Supporting and encouraging new people, participants into local government, and those who are elected into office is important. I want to thank them for the commitment, again, where Minister Cummins is on the record of saying that he has ring-fenced money for the taskforce on local government. That has to be welcomed, but I would ask, again, if we could have a briefing note, in the next week or so, if we can, on the exact detail of the money committed in this budget for that particular, you know, the local government taskforce. It is an important body of work, and I would like to know more details about the funding ring-fence for that. Thank you very much, Minister.