Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. The Green Party has certainly evolved from when it did not even have a leader a few years ago; now, its leader has almost the same autonomy as a leader of Fianna Fáil. It is growing in likeness to its master.

Deputy Gogarty mentioned education and he prided himself on the lack of cuts. However, as my party leader stated, there are many timebombs in the budget, as there are in the Social Welfare Bill 2010, of which people will not be aware until they run into difficulties further down the road. I do not have the statistics on third level grants in front of me but the threshold with regard to distance to the third level institution was 24 km and it has been extended to 48 km. Many people who received grant funding for third level education will not receive it now. The east coast of Wicklow will lose out and the grant amounts received by people there will be decreased. I thought the budget was very disingenuous in that none of this information was articulated in its text; it was all in the schedules, supplements and measures which followed afterwards.

With regard to the universal service charge, I do not know why we do not have the courage in this country to have tax rates, tax bands and tax credits. We have a health levy, an insurance levy and an income levy. We are now abolishing some of these and introducing a universal service charge. Why did we just not increase the tax rate so that if somebody earned more than, for instance, €16,000 the tax rate would be increased by 7%, 5% or another amount? Why do we try to fool the public? We do not succeed. Why do we speak in such riddles? It only makes life more difficult and adds to administration.

I agree with Deputy Gogarty on funding for education. The tourism, culture, agricultural and food industries and education and innovation are the ways to get us out of this difficulty. There is no such thing as free education because somebody pays for it and it is very important to realise this. My philosophy in life is that those who can afford to do so should pay. One should pay less than those financially above one and more than those financially below one. If this philosophy is operated in life and politics people will be satisfied because it gives a sense of fairness. Whether the budget was trying to rebalance the books or the theory, lower income people have been very badly hit.

The Deputy also mentioned politicians' pay. I was not always of the view that corporate donations should be banned, but I have come round to that view. There is much misinformation in the public arena about politicians' pay, but it is difficult for politicians to articulate the ins and outs of the situation because the public, for very understandable reasons, hold politicians and the political system in such low esteem currently.

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