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

Yes, he did. As has been pointed out, somebody at the entry point will benefit to the tune of €170 whereas somebody at the €70,000 level, ourselves included, will benefit by €777.

The Minister could have chosen other options. These two measures cost the State €405 million yet not one person earning under €32,000 will get a penny of it - none of them. They will benefit from the USC changes later on but they will not see a penny from the €405 million cost for these two measures. The Minister has decided to focus that money on the middle income people and he has made a robust defence for doing so. I suggest his position is flawed and that he has adopted the wrong priority at this time.

The Minister continually makes reference to immigrants in London and elsewhere who might not come home if we had a third rate of tax. For example, reducing the tax to 40% may appeal to them and encourage them to come back. Let us be clear, and he knows this better than me, England has three rates of tax. First, the highest rate of 45% is levied on incomes above £150,000. Second, the middle tax is 40% and is the equivalent to the one here as it kicks in at about £32,000. He has failed to remember that England has a high PRSI levy of 12% which increases the percentage to 52%. In reality a person in England who earns the equivalent of €70,000 will pay more tax there than here. In Australia and other jurisdictions to which he referred the kinds of difference in the systems mean that more is not paid. However, somebody earning the higher amount of £150,000 in England will pay far more tax in London, Edinburgh or anywhere else than he or she would in Ireland because the third rate of tax is 45% but there is a 12% social insurance contribution. Also, the employers' social insurance contribution is way higher because we have the lowest employers' PRSI in Europe, apart from Denmark which does not operate such a scheme. That is why our taxation system is crumbling.

I want to know the following. When will we get it right? When will people who go to hospital not have to wait on a trolley in the accident and emergency unit? What about when people go to school? I suggest the Minister talks to teachers who will readily tell him they know well just by looking at the children that they have not had breakfast. Does he know why? It is because the children cannot concentrate. Their eyes move back and forward and they cannot concentrate when their teacher talks to them. Lack of breakfast means their concentration span is very short and only lasts a couple of minutes. Breakfast clubs are being rolled out because parents do not have the disposable income to feed their children. However, the Minister has €405 million at his disposal but he has decided to focus it on individuals who earn between €32,000 and €70,000. As I said, there is no doubt that some of them are hard pressed but a lot of them are not, particularly when compared with areas in society that need the retention more.

This is a philosophical debate but it is also a factual one. The Minister has made the wrong choices. He said he is a constituency Deputy with which I have no argument. I suggest that he has not mixed enough with people who have been battered and bruised by the Government's policies over the past three years and the policies of the last Fianna Fáil-Green Administration. People are at the end of their tether and that is why 150,000 have taken to the streets. All they can see are water charges being imposed without a reprieve. The Government has decided to focus the money it has available not on the least well off in society but on what it believes is a pressed cohort of individuals. I agree that they are pressed but they should not be the priority at this point in time.