Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is not only about this measure, but this measure is symptomatic. It harks back to the sort of practices that got us into the mess that we are in. It is a worrying trend that in the past few budgets new versions of so-called tax incentive measures, which led us into the mess that we are in, are starting to reappear in the form of tax breaks in the areas property and share-trading, derivatives, etc., for wealthy investors and individuals because we need to provide them with a so-called incentive. I do not buy it. It smacks of not learning lessons. In so far as the people get to know about these matters, it infuriates them that when they are getting hammered we are talking about having to give tax breaks - so-called incentives - to the wealthy. There is no evidence that it works. It only adds to the suite of measures from which high-powered accountants, who are employed by wealthy investors, can pick to minimise the amount of tax their clients have to pay.

I accept that small businesses needs credit, although mostly they need demand. The best place to look to provide credit is not by giving further tax breaks to wealth investors. Overall, we lose. We simply redistribute wealth or say that the cost of economic growth and development is that the rich must get richer and that the gap between the haves and the have nots must grow. That is dangerous for the economy.

It is not only that it is unjust, although we can put it those moral terms. If one were to ask what is the fundamental problem with this economy, the European economy and the global economy, it is that there is too much money sloshing around in private hands and the rest of us are held hostage by those wealthy individuals and wealthy corporations. We must do something about it, that is, implement an old-fashioned idea called redistribution of wealth.

This is going in the wrong direction. It is a small measure but I do not accept it. It is not the way to help small and medium-sized businesses. We could do that by starting to stimulate demand in the economy.