Dr. Seán Healy:

That is no problem. The most important thing I would like to say to the committee is that at the core of any issue around budget is the question of consistency in government policy, what might be called coherence in government policy. What I am saying is that the Government should not have a series of policies that are working in different directions. For example, the most important issue that needs to be addressed within the overall budget context is to face up to the fact that the current set of proposals on the budgetary adjustment aimed at producing a borrowing reduction of €3.5 billion in 2013 is not a consistent or coherent position. The reason being that the way it is set up, there is a ratio of almost 2:1, that is €2 in cuts for every €1 in tax increases. If the Government persists with that policy it will not be able to meet other objectives, such as protecting vulnerable people or core public services, whether those services are delivered by the State, the private sector or the community and voluntary sector or combinations of one, two or three of those. That is not doable if the Government continues to move in that direction.

Another point about the same issue is that the overall low tax take in Ireland is not sustainable given the commitments the Government is already engaged in on a range of fronts. One the one side, the Government is trying to reduce borrowing which is desirable and has to be done. On the other side it is trying to ensure public services are maintained and delivered at a frequency and capacity that people require. People are trying to provide those services and maintain what is available with far less of a tax take than any other country in a similar position. One might say the Government is trying to deliver European Union levels of service with American levels of taxation and I do not believe that is possible. In that context what is needed is more coherence and consistency in policy. What we would be looking at therefore is the service levels that people want and how they are to be delivered, the level of social protection and so on. We also need to consider what is possible in terms of a fair taxation system and if there is a shortfall of a certain amount how then can those services be delivered. Does the tax take have to be increased or do we have to find other ways of doing it? The point is that there should not be an attempt to do the impossible.

I wish to make one other reservation and then respond to the two questions. Social Justice Ireland is strongly of the view that Ireland cannot get itself out of its present predicament without getting a serious break on the debt issue and that does not mean extending it, unless for 20 years, such as getting a bond and paying it in 20 years time. That is not the way to go unless one goes with the Karl Whelan proposal that we pay it all back in 3.1 billion years at the rate of €1 per year, with the interest to be paid at the end. Clearly it is a rather facetious proposal but it is trying to make a simple point that it is not possible with Ireland's current levels of debt, which are rising, to get ourselves out of this spiral.

We also need jobs. Without investment there will be no jobs at any scale. Without sufficient jobs there will not be recovery. Without recovery, we will be stuck in this austerity for the foreseeable future. Those issues are on the broader budgetary table which maybe we are not dealing with because we are just dealing with the taxation issue here, but the taxation issue feeds into that. We would be proposing, for example-----