Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation Dail Éireann — 2023-10-12 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central To get the issue resolved is the main thing. CIÉ should be talking and people should be talking on the ground locally. On the matter raised by Deputy Higgins, across the budget area, about €250 million has been allocated in terms of business schemes. The precise details have yet to be worked out. Equally, in areas relating to mental health, older people and disability, people come to us saying they could do with more. We have to weigh all of this up. This is a huge budget. In any scheme that has been announced, there are always lines drawn in the context of finance, tax and so on. We have to be clear from here on in that this is a substantial budget. We have been criticised by economists and so on who say it is too big. We will assess everything. There is a degree of finality to the overall framework around this budget, but I hear what the Deputy is saying. I will follow up with the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media on the matter Deputy Ó Murchú raised. I am not quite clear what the question was. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-10-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:17+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-10-12