Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

My point relates directly to what the Minister has just said. I will be brief and I hope my point is understood. The whole thrust of our approach is that in the present circumstances, as many Deputies have mentioned, the Minister had an opportunity of recasting our approach towards social protection. I have said with regard the budget and other matters that we should attempt to establish a floor beneath which people would not be allowed to fall. I argued that strongly from the point of view of a citizenship model. That would have made the participation of citizens within this State, in terms of inclusiveness, welfare and safety, independent of fluctuations in economic growth. It is perfectly respectable for the Minister to differ with me on that issue, but she cannot just say there is no other way. That was said by one of the most reprehensible participants in political life of the last century, Margaret Thatcher. There are other ways.

If the Minister had taken that approach, she could have defined it in the following way. Any Minister for social welfare or policy makes a choice among three models. One is the distribution of whatever is available from surplus. The second is payments related to whatever a person has earned during his or her lifetime. The third model is one in which we consistently try to redistribute opportunities and security to those who are less well off. This is a redistributive model. There is no point in suggesting that any of us is lesser in our economic probity by simply advancing that model. I do it for a specific reason. The Minister gave us a precis of how we came to be here in terms of the public finances. However, we must consider the history of a series of budgets that provided tax reliefs. The bottom 20% of taxpayers used 1% of the tax reliefs, while 77% of the top tax reliefs - on such things as spas and car parks - were used by people on incomes of more than €100,000, while more than half, at 60-odd percent, were used by people earning more than €200,000. Those budgets provided massive opportunities for those with high disposable income.

What about the notion that the poor dears are shrinking in number and there are not that many of them to give us more money? The Minister for Finance said in his budget statement that he was doing something very radical by giving net high income earners - as adjudged by the Revenue Commissioners - an effective tax rate of 30%. He is doing this on the basis that people will throw millions in the faces of poor people around the country - he is simply saying that philanthropy will do what the State will not do. These people will have to pay €200,000. It is time to put a stop to this nonsense. We heard from the former Minister, Charlie McCreevy, that there was no money out there. What about all the money that was lifted out of the economy and invested abroad? What about all the money that was forked into pension funds for people earning a couple of hundred thousand?

I agree with one thing the Minister said. She said it was obscene for people to be paid €400,000, and I agree with her. Therefore, I find it obscene that people feel it is acceptable to earn a similar amount as a part-time non-executive director of a bank. We are agreed on that. However, it is simply not true to say there are no riches out there that could have been accumulated. There could have been a rake-back from those who enjoyed property reliefs worth €400 million. The Minister can defend her position as much as she wishes, but she cannot say there was no alternative. There was an alternative.

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