Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister for his presence. This Finance Bill implements the budget for 2005. It contains little that is new in addition to the measures already announced in the Budget Statement.

Before the budget Sinn Féin urged the new Minister to address in particular the issue of child care. We urged the introduction of a comprehensive package of child care measures, both budgetary and legislative, implementing the right of children to the best care, allowing parents to care for their children full-time up to one year of age, and equalising women's participation in the labour market.

Our comprehensive Private Members' motion, which saw a substantive debate here, and our subsequent budget priorities document entitled Putting Children First received a widespread welcome in the child care sector. Our elected representatives and party workers throughout the country promoted those proposals and met with an immediate response from individuals, families and communities experiencing an acute need for child care infrastructure. That is the situation I have found. It was no surprise to us, therefore, when there was such widespread disappointment that the budget for 2005 failed to address the major gap identified in child care or the issue as a whole.

While there was a welcome increase in funding for the equal opportunities child care programme and which welcome I recorded, there was no recognition of the limitations of the programme or the need for a comprehensive approach. I appreciate it was the Minister's first budget but I make these points not only to point out what has not been included in the budget but to urge his attention sincerely on these matters in the coming budget. I regret that nothing has been done since the budget announcement, certainly nothing that is apparent, to address this major gap in Government policy. This Bill confirms the Government's blind spot on the child care issue. It is regrettable nothing of any substance has been done or said on the matter in the period since.

Since the budget, a significant study was published but received little attention and certainly not the attention it deserves. This is the major EU report published last month which shows that nearly one in four of our people, 23%, are at risk of poverty while nearly one in ten are consistently poor. In a State which is supposedly one of the wealthiest in the world, the persistence of this level of inequality is a disgrace. After a decade of the so-called Celtic tiger, it is children more than any other group who live in consistent poverty. The report shows that nearly 15% of children under the age of 15 are consistently poor, in other words, living in homes which struggle to provide adequate food, heating and clothing. If what I have said is familiar to the Minister and he has heard it before, it is because that is the set of findings I cited to the Tánaiste in the House last week. Her first response was to question the methodology of the report. She was reluctant to use the term "poverty". Anyone who knows the reality of life in many of our communities — certainly I know it — cannot deny there are levels of deprivation which are inexcusable and also avoidable.

In another important report on the taxation system, published last October, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions stated that our tax system is "fundamentally unjust" and "biased against those on low and middle incomes and it does not raise enough tax overall to pay for modern public services". What is the result? It means that our unreformed health service is ill-equipped to care for the health of those who need the public system most because they cannot afford private care, and nearly 40% of those surveyed in 2003 identified financial problems as the greatest factor and the critical reason preventing them from improving their health. None of this can be solved in one budget or Finance Bill, something I have acknowledged, and we are prepared to be patient. We will make the case and will argue where we believe that attention must be focused. In that spirit I hope the Minister will accept these points and reflect them wholesomely in the next opportunity that will open to him.

The Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government has been in office since 1997 and has taken until now to remove those on the minimum wage from the tax net. The timing is interesting as it comes at the outset of the campaign for an increase in the minimum wage, which the trade unions correctly demand. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, received plaudits for the reduction in stamp duty for first time buyers of second-hand property. I have no doubt that was a sincere effort on his part and I commend the intent. While this is welcome and long overdue, what can be done to ensure the benefit is enjoyed by the buyers? I reflect on the television discussion immediately after the budget at which I was present for a brief period and during which we heard representatives of auctioneers and valuers say the reduction would be eaten up by an increase in house prices. That shows the need for regulation of the price of housing, an issue which the Minister and the Government have refused to countenance. The argument is strongly underscored by that fact alone and, similarly, to give further weight to the argument, by the increased tax relief for tenants in private rented accommodation. If nothing is done to control rents, they will continue to rise and this tax relief will amount to nothing more than a subsidy to greedy landlords throughout the country.

The Government's tax cuts between 1997 and 2002 saw only 5% of budget tax cuts benefiting some 20% of the lowest earners. We live with that legacy. The budget and the Bill represent a catch-up rather than a radical shift in direction and, clearly, there is more work to be done. For many years, we in Sinn Féin have called for a comprehensive review, as referred to by other colleagues, of the wide range of property-based tax reliefs and the closing of those through which wealthy corporations and individuals are allowed to avoid their fair share of tax. We will probably never know how much is being lost to the public finances through these so-called reliefs because the Government, including during the time Mr. McCreevy was Minister for Finance, never carried out a cost-benefit analysis of the huge range of such allowances and was unable to answer my parliamentary questions on the loss to the Exchequer they represent. We caught a glimpse of the extent of that loss before the budget when it was revealed that 11 millionaires and 242 people earning between €100,000 and €1 million per year paid no tax in 2001. The Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners do not know how many tens of millions of euro have been lost through tax breaks of property speculators and developers of such commercial ventures as private hospitals, hotels, sports injury clinics, multi-storey car parks and a range of others. The Minister has indicated that a review is under way. I do not suggest all of this must be dumped. We must all be informed and advised and must be able to measure.

In the budget the Minister directed his Department, together with the Revenue Commissioners, to undertake a thorough evaluation of the effect of what he called all relevant incentive reliefs and exemptions and to bring forward proposals for change. When does the Minister expect that review to conclude and will he bring its findings before the House where they can be debated fully?

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