Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 4, line 18, after "Finance" to insert "on behalf of the Oireachtas".

I am disappointed that amendment No. 3 was disallowed because bank executives and chief executives of State bodies need to be reined in and the amendment would have gone some way toward achieving that.

The purpose of amendment No. 4 is to try to focus the Minister for Finance somewhat on the Oireachtas. In January, when we nationalised Anglo Irish Bank, the Minister had information which he did not share with us. That refers to the PricewaterhouseCoopers report. He also let us down badly in respect of the terms and conditions of the bank guarantee scheme soon after many people on this side of the House had voted with the Government on the bail out scheme. We did so in good faith that the Minister would use terms and conditions as a useful mechanism to rein in banks. Unfortunately, we were let down badly in that instance too.

Earlier, we highlighted several measures proposed in the budget in October as serious errors and the Minister had to change those very soon thereafter. It is a pity the Minister would not listen to speakers on this side of the House because we would have saved him a great deal of trouble on each and all of those occasions. There is a benefit in listening to us but the Minister is obviously not well disposed to doing so. There is a propensity on this side of the House to be constructive and helpful. That opportunity is not being taken up by the Minister, as was exemplified when he refused to accept the two previous amendments, which were very reasonable and rational. The Minister knows that big, medium and small businesses across this land are struggling and facing serious difficulties. Jobs are in danger as a result.

I am concerned that this measure will damage the trade union movement. The leaders of that movement want to be reasonable and rational. I am careful not to say anything that might damage the movement or put its leaders under any more pressure. The way the Minister handled the talks with the trade union movement over recent weeks and months left a lot to be desired. It is obvious that industrial unrest, which would have a further negative impact across this land and beyond, is almost inevitable. Nobody is asking the Minister to reduce the amount of revenue he wants the Exchequer to get from this scheme. We are all on the same side in that regard. However, the Government is going after families with small and medium incomes that cannot afford the levy, or wage cut, that is to be applied, which augurs serious times for us all.

I echo and support the comments made by Deputy Bruton a few moments ago. We are asking the Minister to take a certain amount of money off the bottom end of this levy scheme. If he decides to recoup that money substantially further up the scale, where people can afford it, we will have no problem with that. I do not understand why the Minister is rejecting that notion, which is the essence of this amendment. I do not expect the Minister to accept it, given his disposition on this project to date.

See this speech in context