Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State will have her time to debate these issues. These are facts that are on the record. The Minister of State will have time to defend using the public's money in this way and the fact the Government has turned the toxic Anglo Irish Bank debt into a formalised sovereign debt. The more we learn about what happened at the bank and at Irish Nationwide Building Society, the more disgusted the public becomes at the notion of paying off their debts. Yet this Government has committed to paying every last cent of that debt. Despite the number of times I have asked about unguaranteed and unsecured bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank who had nothing to do with the vote on the night of the guarantee because they were unguaranteed, this Government has continued to allow that State bank to pay off unguaranteed bondholders. Whether it is €1.2 billion or €800 million, it does not matter to the Labour Party and Fine Gael. It does not matter to the Government. The people will pay. The Government will introduce property taxes and water taxes, cut child benefit, reduce the amount of home help hours, take services out of hospitals and increase fees for students. They will pay for the unguaranteed and unsecured bondholders. The Government will ensure these big hedge funds, the people who bought these bonds at 60 cent in the euro, get paid every single last cent and get their bonus on top of it.

Let us not talk about bonuses because the Government is good at those as well. We have pay caps for those on disability payments, those who rely on pensions, the under-25s who are out of work and those who go on to schemes such as JobBridge and the Government's new concocted scheme. However, when it comes to the Government's special advisers and party hacks, it does not worry about the pay caps. Its attitude is: "Sure they are one of us. They are the old boys network." It does not worry about the pay caps because one Minister will write to another and tell him or her that he is one of our boys and not to worry about the pay caps because they are for the other people, the lesser beings. The golden circles may have been smashed in 2008 but they have reformed with the support of this Government. There are circles and little fiefdoms in Cabinet that the Government continues to protect them.

In respect of the money pumped into our pillar banks, very little progress has been made. With every passing day, the prospect of the European Stability Mechanism being used to recapitalise our pillar banks retrospectively fades. I hope it will happen but it seems it is important to listen to the president of the Eurogroup, the German Finance Minister or the ESM chief and, sadly, they do not think it will happen. Given the rules this Government signed up to on how the ESM can be used, it is difficult to imagine a large part of that debt ever being eligible for recapitalisation. That is the terrible failure of this Government. Since 2008, approximately €30 billion has been cut from public services and salaries or levied through tax. That is equivalent to the amount that could be recouped if this Government had a plan and the determination and commitment to stand up for the retrospective recapitalisation of our banks, but it has failed even to ask for it. On banking debt, like personal debt, this Government has flapped about and achieved very little.

When it comes to laying out fiscal policy, the most startling aspect of the programme for Government is what it does not say. There is no strategy or vision other than a commitment to reduce the deficit to 3%. The lack of detail of how the Government plans to get there is stark. There are a few bullet points on what it was not going to do so there are no changes to corporation tax or income tax bands. There are a few vague bullet points about making tax exiles contribute more and cutting loopholes. There are points that represent downright spin. Examples include the increase in VAT being referred to as limiting VAT at 23% and the exploring of a site value tax with the IMF which was transformed into a property tax. Given that both parties made the reduction of the deficit to 3% practically their sole goal in office, the programme for Government's fiscal policy reads like a mere footnote compared with other sections in the programme. It is barely one tenth of the many pages that are set out on job creation and we know the Government's goal on that is an unemployment rate of 10.4% after four glorious years in office.

Considering how much work would be required to get the deficit to 3%, it is astonishing how little of it was included in the document. We all know why it did not include the detail because telling people that over the course of its tenure, they could expect billions upon billions of euro in tax increases and public service cuts in each budget was hardly desirable. If the Government had told people at the start what it was planning with the property tax, that might have raised alarm bells. There is no site value tax. Instead, the Government introduced a highly regressive tax on family homes that took no account of ability to pay, mortgages or stamp duty paid. The Government presented to families the length and breadth of this State a tax on the value of the roof over their heads. If those families have parents who have lost jobs, who are in mortgage distress, who bought during the boom, who paid €30,000 in stamp duty and who now live in houses worth a quarter of what they owe to the banks, none of that matters to the Government one damn bit. The Government has told them they must stump up and pay the property tax. What is worse is that it has tried to claim that it is somehow fair. If it is fair, why did both parties campaign during the election on the basis that they would not introduce such an unfair tax? The Government has said the property tax will go into providing local services but we all know that not one cent of the money raised last year went to any local authority.

In its programme for Government, the Government committed to maintain tax rates, bands and credits. Clearly, it did not keep its promise on tax credits. Last year, it made changes that meant that separated fathers lost €2,490 in tax credits every year, so the Government cannot for one moment say it has kept its promise after asking separated fathers to stump up another €2,500 per year in tax, but then nothing about the Labour Party and Fine Gael and their brass neck surprises me these days.

The Government has engaged in a lobby-led discussion about tax cuts in the coming budget which would mean changes to existing tax bands, but only at the marginal level. Sinn Féin firmly believes there should be tax cuts in the next budget. We want to see the property tax abolished saving 1.8 million households an average of €278 per year. We want the Government to commit investment money to fix leaking water infrastructure and not introduce water charges for families next year. We would very much like the Government to revisit the programme for Government commitment to review the universal social charge, USC. It tinkered with it when it came into office and raised the entry point of the USC to just over €10,000. It was welcome but if the Government really wants to address tax being a disincentive to work, this is the tax it needs to look at. We have argued that the USC entry point should be raised to €17,542 per annum. As it stands, this Government expects people earning between as little as €193 and €337 per week to pay USC on their entire wage. Families need tax cuts via the abolition of property tax and water charges. Low earners need tax cuts in the form of the USC entry point being increased. These are the areas the Government should be discussing.

The Government's fiscal policy has been a disaster for Irish families, jobs and the economy. It has lengthened and deepened the recession. Now the Government is approaching its blinkered goal of 3% debt to GDP ratio, it is actively considering adapting its fiscal policy to ensure that in a future recovery, people who are better off to begin with benefit most. This is a fiscal policy stance that deepens inequality and does not adequately provide for a future economy that is stable and can fund the public services people desire and depend upon.

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