Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

For those who like baked Alaska, this budget is a bit like a bad one. It looks lovely on the outside, is full of hot air, is cold in the middle and it is very tough when one tries to eat it. People stuck on the West Link as they go home might feel this House could do with a coat of paint. Perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Callely, might get in the contractors.

The Minister is increasing spending by 9.9%, yet there is nothing in the Estimates for a national pay agreement which is due sometime next year. Basically, the budget is about helping to buy votes at the next general election. We will have to hope that extra money is, as far as possible, well spent.

The budget is a kind of Fianna Fáil fairy-tale. I do not know if the Minister is familiar with Narnia but this is a bit like Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The Minister is telling us it is all true, that there is a country to which one can get through the wardrobe. Rather than look at its true record, once more Fianna Fáil want people to close their eyes to the truth and make a wish that it will all be okay. We are to believe the promises on child care, transport and the health strategy and to believe false promises on fair taxation.

The budget was, in many ways, to be billed as a budget for children, but like so much this Government does, it is riddled with half measures. Our children are not a problem; they are our greatest resource. In the run-up to the budget, some of the debate lost focus on the fact that we do not simply want to live in a great economy but in a great society which is child and family focused for all situations. That is the test of what we expect in a child-centred budget.

Today's measures show all the signs of a rush job dictated by a political rather than a child welfare agenda. It is based on the needs of a desperate political party and not particularly on the needs of children and families. Today's measures offer a modest and welcome relief for parents from some of the financial burden in arranging for their children to be cared for while they are at work. It offers limited financial supports. In this year's Book of Estimates, child benefit, with no changes, will cost just under €2 billion. If the Minister were to improve that by 25%, the package would come in at approximately €500 million, but instead it comes in at €317 million. The increase in child benefit for all children up to 19 years of age, if they attend school, is very modest. The €20 per week is a lot less than I had expected. I really thought the Minister might have given €50 per week for children under six years of age, something the Labour Party sought.

I do not want to sound churlish but if a family with two children have a bad bout of winter 'flu or asthma and it does not have a full or a "yellow pack" medical card, it will cost €50 in this town to visit a doctor, even on the north side. A bout of 'flu or asthma in a family is likely to end up costing it around €500 between two adults and two children. Therefore, while the €20 per week will be welcome, it is not as much as one would have expected from the hype generated.

The budget needed to set out a strategy for children's welfare. Instead, the Minister is spreading the jam very thinly over the bread, so thinly in parts that one cannot even notice it. There are many half measures. I am glad the Minister announced a tax disregard for child care. He and I discussed this during the debate on the Finance Bill. Childminders and home arrangements are the choice of approximately half the parents whose children are minded for some or all of the day and I am glad the disregard is being brought in. The Labour Party wants it subject to a register so that we ensure these childminders, who have been in the black economy, who by and large have no pension or PRSI provision and who are almost all women aged between 40 and 50 and over, are registered. It is important younger childminders in the home are given opportunities to train. The Minister referred to a notification system but I am not sure if that is the same as a full register. I am sure he will give us more details later.

A startling fact of which the Minister might not be aware is that child development tests used to be routinely done at nine months of age. In many parts of this country, for example, Dún Laoghaire, a wealthy area of this city, child development tests have gone back to one and a half years of age. Anybody who is a parent knows the importance of these development tests to see if everything is okay and to catch as early as possible anything which has gone wrong. That is a measure of what has happened in terms of slippage and provision for children in this society.

I am very disappointed there has been almost no mention of early childhood education. This is another key element of a child-centred programme. This is extraordinary because all of the international research, particularly from the United States, shows that investment in pre-school and early childhood education pays dividends. Most of our European counterparts have had écoles maternelles for a long time. Even 40 years later, the children who got a head start with early childhood education still have higher rates of employment, more success in their personal lives and less contact with the law in the sense of their lives going disastrously wrong, yet the Minister only made a vague reference to this issue. It is terrible to have missed this opportunity. The programme introduced by the former Minister, Niamh Bhreathnach, into selected schools is still only a pilot project. Children only get one chance at childhood and another year has gone by with no attempt to introduce a pre-school and early childhood education system. I know the Minister has tried to spread the jam but I would have thought he would have attempted to do something in this regard following the NESF report and the big conference that was attended, particularly by the Minister for Education and Science, in Kilmainham.

The Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, does not acknowledge the problem we have with the numbers of students dropping out of second level education, particularly in big cities and towns. It is especially true of boys and is very marked, as the Taoiseach is aware, in the Dublin area. Only a third of Dublin schools are achieving a retention rate to leaving certificate of above 80% and as many as one school in six does not achieve a retention rate of 50%. This means that in those schools 50% of boys leave school just after the junior certificate. We know the prediction for these boys who have no training or qualifications. I accept they can get jobs in shopping centres and in distribution but by the time they are in their mid-20s, they will be stuck and unable to compete in the knowledge economy we have talked about building. They will either be unemployed or stuck in the lowest of low paid jobs.

I deplore the lack of vision in regard to primary education and the lack of reference to secondary education. The McIver report produced by the various second level teaching unions, does not merit a mention either. There are problems with the National Educational Welfare Board, which is not mentioned either. The Minister's lack of vision in regard to education at all levels is a great pity. I am pleased with the money being provided for the third level sector but we will have to wait to see the detail of this proposal. I hope the institutes of technology and not just the universities will share in that dividend. The institutes of technology are critical in terms of participation rates for middle income and less well-off families and give a much needed opportunity to the latter group.

The Government has been topping up its coffers by fairly nasty stealth taxes in the past three years and by pushing more and more taxpayers into paying tax at the 42% rate. When the Government came into office in 2002, the standard rate band for a single person was €28,000. In other words, any income earned above that amount was taxed at 42%. Unless this band is increased in line with annual wage rises, people pay more and more of their income at 42%. The Government did not increase the band for two budgets after the last election, the two last budgets of the former Minister, Mr. McCreevy. While wages have increased on average by 15%, the standard rate band has only expanded by5%. The Minister referred to an increase of 9%. We would have needed to see an increase of 15% to bring people anywhere near to what they have missed out on in recent years.

The programme for Government contains a commitment that only 20% of taxpayers will pay tax at the top rate. The table on page C.22 of the Budget Statement that sets out the Minister's hopes for next year, without taking into account changes in regard to wage agreements, states that just over 658,000 taxpayers will pay tax at the top rate next year. That means the Minister has only taken 8,400 taxpayers out of the 42% band. Contrary to the little bit of verbal dexterity we heard from him, that is the reality. The Minister is nodding his head. I do not know whether it is in agreement or disagreement.

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