Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

I will come in as well if that is okay. I want to echo what has been said in relation to this. This is a policy matter we have discussed long and wide. SARP is obviously coming to an end at the end of this year but the Minister has brought forward a proposal to continue with this measure. I find this is just a grossly unfair measure. I have made the point on numerous occasions that if a lot of members of the public knew what was contained in this section of the Finance Bill, they would be rightly annoyed. We discussed earlier how the Minister made a deliberate choice not to provide tax cuts to workers who are really struggling due to the cost of living but in this section, he is making a deliberate choice to reward 99 millionaires with a tax cut of €105,000 per year. People are gobsmacked at that idea. Nineteen of them earn over €3 million and the Minister's proposal is to give those 19 individuals a tax cut of €105,000 each year for the five years for which they can claim this. That is just madness.

The number of people who claim this, from recent statistics - and it may have increased because they are increasing year on year - is 2,925 individuals but these individuals, under this new section, have to earn above €125,000. They cannot be formerly employed in the State. They have to have come from outside and have to be a key individual. There is a policy here. Multinationals have an issue with regard to wage equalisation where employees are not discommoded in terms of their take-home pay as a result of where they are located. I find this just very difficult to stomach. I could not, in all conscience, support a policy that is making millionaires richer to the tune of €105,000 of a tax cut when I know that so many people in my constituency and right across the State are really struggling to heat their homes, keep the lights on and put food on the table. They are left worse off as a result of the budget and this Finance Bill yet there is this measure here, which costs €60 million. For less than that, the Minister could have made different decisions. He could have increased the standard rate band by €200. That would have supported hundreds of thousands of workers but the Minister decided not to do it and they are the choices that are made.

I know the Minister will say this is about employment and all the rest but in my view, there is no justification. The Minister is asking members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who I am sure will row in behind him and vote to ensure that people who are earning - in some cases, as the statistics show us - over €3 million are going to get a tax cut of €105,000. That is absolutely bizarre. It is unethical and wrong. I would not be able to walk in to my local hospital and talk to the person who is serving me a cup of tea or the nurse who may be treating me and say, "By the way, I supported a measure that ensures some of the wealthiest in this State pay less tax than you do as a proportion of their income". That is what it does. It allows, for somebody who is earning up to €1 million, €262,000 of their wages to be disregarded for tax purposes. It is absolutely madness. I am not supporting this. It is systematic of a Government that brings forward proposals that have an extension or deadline that keeps on getting extended and extended again. A measure that is supposed to cost a small amount of money then costs tens of millions of euro and I have no doubt this will continue to grow.