Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on the Finance Bill. The budget was introduced in December and the purpose of this Bill is to put the budget announcements into law. I listened to many speakers talking about the wonderful Government and how happy and joyful people were as a result of the budget. However, people had a different view after Christmas. They realised they had been conned by the spindoctors.

It is amazing how much taxpayers' money is spent on spindoctors to spin out misinformation to the public. It is bad enough that the tax is taken out of their pockets by the Government without the Government paying it to spindoctors to spin lies to them about how wonderful the Government is, what a wonderful country we have, and how well everything is going.

I met a businessman recently who runs a nursing home. His electricity bill used to be €1,060 per billing session. His first bill in January, in the wake of the recent increases, was €1,662. How can that be, if this Government is so great at controlling inflation? We got good news with the budget in December, but we got bad news in January.

All the local authorities held their estimates meetings. Most local authorities increased their service charges and rates by 5%, 6% or 7%. The Government is crucifying small businesses. More and more people are asking themselves why they are working, why they are in business, why they are employing people. Why is the Government coming down so much on small businesses?

The biggest single crisis relates to the ability of young people to get into the housing market. The exemption of first-time buyers of second-hand houses from stamp duty in the budget has helped, but it was not half enough. We should do more for young people. We should give them better tax breaks. We should help them to get into the market. We should penalise big builders who hoard land and decide how many houses are built in this State every year in order to control the market. It is all about supply and demand. If they are allowed to supply as few houses as they like, they control the market. Most local authorities failed to build the number of houses for which they had funding from the State. We must examine other ways of getting houses built.

Young people are doing their best. There are young couples who want to get married but cannot do so because they cannot afford a home. They look around every day to see how they can get into the market but they are taxed out of it. We see the builders at the Galway Races, Leopardstown and every other place and they do not know what to do with all their money. Some 25 years ago when things were bad, they did not know what to do with their money. As a result of tribunals taking place, we are getting some of the taxation that should have been paid at the time.

More people are getting out of business, such as running rural pubs, and leaving rural Ireland because of taxation. People cannot stay in business in rural Ireland because they are so heavily taxed. The stealth tax does the damage. Local authorities will have to pay 8.5% in benchmarking pay rises to their staff. That money will come from rates, road tax and funding from Departments. A limited number of people pay rates to local authorities. A day will come when councils will have to be more accountable for the way they spend the money.

I was disappointed there was no provision in the Finance Bill dealing with natural gas. The opening of the Corrib gas field off north Mayo is creating a great inconvenience for people and disturbing their way of life. Every cent being spent on infrastructure for setting up that gas field can be written off for tax purposes. The natural gas from the Corrib field, which should not be called the Corrib gas field but the north Mayo gas field because it is located off north Mayo, will go through Mayo to Galway and Clare and on out of the country. Bord Gáis will have to pay the top rate for the gas to the company operating the field, and the taxpayer has given this company an allowance in respect of every cent it pays to pipe gas.

We had an opportunity in the Finance Bill to impose some level on taxation on the company to recoup some money for the people, especially the people of north Mayo given that the gas comes from that area. However, when Mr. Burke was the Minister in charge of this area, and I do not like to kick anybody who is down, he concluded deals with these gas and oil companies who are the real winners now, not the State. I do not want to go back in history but we had an opportunity in previous finance legislation to impose some level of taxation on those companies. There are many good civil servants in the Department of Finance who are good at thinking of ways to take money from taxpayers. They must do it; that is their job.

Will the Minister explain why some measure was not put in place in the Finance Bill to provide for a return for the Exchequer given that we have sold our mineral rights and given the prospecting companies tax breaks? Rather than a company such as that in the Corrib field paying its fair share of tax to the Government, ordinary PAYE taxpayers effectively subsidise it in order that it can take the profits out of this country and reward its investors in New York, South Africa and London. The profits are being robbed from the country and sent abroad. I am disappointed the Minister for Finance did not see fit to put a measure in place to enable some tax to be levied on such a company. Even at this late stage, I call on the Minister, the Government and the officials within the Department of Finance to put a provision in place on Committee Stage to ensure we get some money from such a company. It has free access to this House and to every Minister. I ask it to give a fair share back to the Irish taxpayer.

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