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

None of us knows what will happen in the future. However, there has been an unfair impetus put on the Irish people at the lower level. The Minister of State refers to reports from independent studies and so on, but he fails to mention the names of the studies. For example, the ESRI is one such study. The Minister of State should talk about the ESRI study and not rely on what happened before he came to office. The ESRI's study on the 2012 budget showed clearly that it was regressive, "with reductions of about 2% to 2.5% for those with the lowest incomes, as against losses of about 0.75% for those on the highest incomes". The ESRI is independent. It carried out an analysis of the budget. The Minister told us that the ESRI does not take full account of all the measures and so on, but that is a study. I do not need a study to tell me where the impact has fallen.

The Minister of State can argue and talk about gross figures, and I will go back to the Mark Twain quote about lies, damned lies and statistics. It is not about who take the gross amount and whether the current Taoiseach took a pay reduction. Of course he took a reduction, and he have should have done so, because the last Taoiseach was overpaid.