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

My view is like that of the previous speaker. The ESRI report showed that the Government's budgets were not progressive and it took in the totality of the budget. The last report or analysis done attributed as the driving factor the family home tax in explaining why the Government took twice off the lowest income decile compared to half that amount from the highest income decile. Unfortunately, these are the bare facts. We can quote reports and use different timeframes. The Minister prefers to include the four previous budgets of Fianna Fáil to try to take up the current Government's progressivity a little but the Minister must stand on his own record. He has been in office two years. Let us consider the individual budgets brought in. Certainly, they have been far from progressive.

Will the Minister explain the impact section 3 will have on the self-employed over 70 years? Under the original legislation all self-employed people, regardless of age, earning above €100,000 paid 7%. How does the new section affect existing arrangements for over 70s who are self-employed?