Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I would like to speak to our amendment. Let me say that, in spite of whatever allegations the Minister may throw at others, we are consistent in putting forward alternative proposals to raise revenue to provide for our objective to significantly increase expenditure in housing, health, education, and in other key infrastructures and services. We do so consistently every year. We have been consistent in saying that the universal social charge, USC, was an unfair austerity tax imposed on workers. It was particularly unfair, given that the Government trenchantly resists efforts to impose additional taxes, as it did during the austerity period, but it continues to be largely opposed to redistributing the tax burden in a fair way. The only discussion that ever seems to take place is a discussion about increasing or maybe occasionally slightly reducing the tax burden on the majority. Never do we talk about what we think is the elephant in the room. That is the gross inequality in the distribution of income and wealth in Irish society. If we were to have a policy objective of trying to redistribute income and wealth to move towards a more equal society, then it could be done. It could produce much revenue and it could result in a fairer society. In our view, never has that been more justified than in the context of Covid-19.

Working people really demonstrated how important they are. It was the retail workers, public sector workers, transport workers, health workers, and many others who kept us going when society was shut down. They showed how important they are. They are very often the same workers who are hammered by the universal social charge and who are on much lower incomes. That contrasts with how net household wealth increased substantially in Irish society, even during the Covid-19 period. However, most of that wealth and income is concentrated in the top 10% or so of our society. We think that for all of those reasons it is justified to take radical measures to redistribute the tax burden and, through that, to redistribute wealth and income more generally. That is the logic of what we are doing. We are delighted that the Rural Independents Group has now adopted socialist policies in this regard-----