Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

When a government makes a decision that private debt be foisted onto the shoulders of the working class, then we are in an entirely different situation and a crazed logic and morality, which is what is being implemented. Virtually every economist in town goes along with that and does not challenge it.

I need to move forward quickly. I refer to the end of austerity and 2015-16. The projections being made cannot be hard and fast as they are related to the macro projections of growth, deficit, etc., but what about this whole raft of new taxes - for example, the property tax and the water tax - if allowed to be implemented? There will be a massive people's movement of opposition. They may well be abolished by 2016. I believe they will be because there will be a revolt. However, let us say for the sake of argument that they are not, when things start to come right in terms of the council's projections, one could have another huge attack on the ability of working people to purchase. One could have maybe €500 million or €750 million in property tax, which is the equivalent of two week's pay for low paid workers and which is not going into the economy but out of it. If water tax is added to that, one is talking about perhaps up to €1 billion between two taxes being taken out of the economy. Will that not affect the projections for a resuscitation of the domestic economy as well?