Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

The hype, rí-rá agus ruaille buaille that traditionally accompanies the Budget Statement and budget day badly needs to be decommissioned. It is a smokescreen which diverts attention very effectively from the following reality. As far as the economy and the lives of working people and working class families are concerned, when it comes to economic reality, the budget and its measures are a sideshow. The economic structures that dominate our society and the economic policies pursued by this Government, based on the fundamentals of neo-liberalist capitalism, dictate how people live, their living standards, their struggle to survive and how difficult it is to make ends meet. Around budget time the millionare-owned media — even the billionaire-owned media in a few cases — and the political parties in Government all collude to obfuscate this reality, namely, the mortgages people must pay, the cost of living and the stealth taxes that continue in one form or other. These are the issues that determine how people can live economically. In this regard the budget truly reflects some relatively minor adjustments.

To illustrate, in the budget a single worker on €30,000 or about the average industrial wage will gain in changes in the PAYE income tax, according to the Budget Statement, €402 in a full year. Take the example of a single worker who lives in Tyrellstown, a major new suburb of 2,000 homes or so in west Dublin. The single worker moved and purchased a home there, say, two years ago. However, the privatisation of public services such as the maintenance of open spaces, public liability insurance and lighting through the mechanism of the management companies foisted upon people such as this by the local authority, acting in place of the Government, means he or she must pay a management fee of, say, €400 a year. The money arising from the PAYE tax break envisaged yesterday will be spent before it appears in their pay packets. However, the Minister for Finance does not have to mention that in the House. It is one of the many dishonest stealth taxes placed on the shoulders of ordinary working people.

Up to three years ago in parts of north and west Dublin under the remit of Fingal County Council, refuse collection from households was met from the general taxation of working people. Every time a bin is emptied in Fingal, it costs €7.50, which amounts to €390 a year should a family have to put out a bin on a weekly basis. This is the same amount allegedly gained by a single worker earning €30,000 per annum in the budget. A second stealth tax, therefore, has been placed on the shoulders of working people, which the Minister does not have to mention and which he ignores conveniently.

The changes to child care and child benefit were announced with a great fanfare. The Budget Statement referred to an example of a married couple with a gross income of €40,000 per annum and two children under the age of six. The increases in the personal tax credit, child benefit and the child supplement are worth €2,323 in 2006, as it only covers nine months. However, this couple purchased a semi-detached three-bedroom house three years ago for €260,000. Ten years ago the home would have cost €60,000. The mortgage payments hanging around their necks reflect that grotesque increase in house prices. During that time, speculators and developers were allowed by the Government to run riot with the price of building land and homes, one of the most fundamental human needs. The increase in the price of a home, which that typical family is forced to pay, means the €2,323 gained in tax breaks and child benefit pales into insignificance by contrast with the outright robbery of mortgage payments resulting from the increase in house prices.

The records of the Central Statistics Office indicate that three years ago an average family home cost €262,000 in Dublin. Incredibly, within three years, the average price had jumped €100,000 with mortgage payments increasing accordingly. The average mortgage payment for a regular family home costing €300,000 is €1,437 per month whereas three years ago, the house would have cost €80,000 less and the family would have paid €400 less per month on its mortgage. A family purchasing a home this year will pay €4,800 per annum more on its mortgage than three years ago, yet the Minister and the Government expects us to be grateful for the provision of €2,300 in child care allowances.

The increases granted in the budget, which are generated by the hard earned taxes of the PAYE and self-employed workers, are absorbed by the profiteering and speculation the Government parties have allowed land owners, developers and big business to run rampant with since they first came to power. These factors influence the lives of working people 1,000 times more than the adjustments made on budget day, yet the print media provide acres of detailed coverage about the winners and losers today while these fundamental realities are not mentioned. The lives of working people are much more intense and difficulty nowadays as they try to make ends meet, than they were ten years ago as a result of the Government's policy of allowing speculators and private capitalists to run riot while workers pick up the tab. One can only expect this from the millionaires and billionaires who own the newspapers and who are part of the establishment.

The banks are another bastion of society, which have gained massively from the significant increases in house prices that are such a burden on working people. They have made profits hand over fist at the expense of young single workers and couples who will pay 30 and 40 year mortgages for virtually the rest of their days, yet the Government decided to abolish levies that would have taken a modest €100 million from these super profitable institutions. The Government decided to do nothing about the speculators and to leave them at it. This time last year, I exposed in the House the purchase of 11 acres of building land in south Dublin five years ago for €32 million and its resale in 2004 for €85 million, a speculative profit of €53 million in only four years. The speculators were not from outer space; they were the so-called cream of the establishment. Wealthy legal, business and medical personnel organised this entirely legal speculative scam. However, the apartments on that land will cost on average €200,000 in site costs alone before a brick is laid. In other words, the Government's policies are bleeding ordinary workers, particularly young people, and the adjustments in the budget are minor by contrast.

Similarly, yesterday, tax adjustments in recent years were not mentioned, which resulted in massive reductions in corporation tax. Since they were first introduced four years ago, big business has saved between €500 million and €600 million in tax. Capital gains tax changes have massively enriched speculators and tax breaks for private hospitals have been maintained. Everything reflects the fact that the Government is utterly wedded to a right wing economic policy and neoliberal capitalism and working people are suffering. All the rí-rá and nonsense that accompanies the budget is a diversion from that basic fact.

Is frithbhuaic amach agus amach an buiséad seo, mar is gnáth gach bliain. Rí-rá a thagann leis an mbuiséad sna nuachtáin agus na meáin cumarsáide i measc páirtithe polaitiúla. I ndáiríre is fothaispeántas ar thaobh an aonaigh an buiséad. Tógann seo aird ó pholasaithe an éite dheis agus bun struchtúir eacnamaíochta a bhfuil tionchar acu ar shaol an gnáth lucht oibre 1,000 uair níos mó ná an buiséad agus na mion-rudaí a rinneadh inné. Fothaispeántas ar thaobh an aonaigh 'sea an buiséad ach i lár an aonaigh chomh fada agus a bhaineann sé le gnáth lucht oibre — praghas tithíochta, cánacha faoi cheilt agus costais eile atá i gcónaí ag méadú. Sin is mó a chuireann isteach ar ghnáth lucht oibre agus a dhéanann an saol chomh deacair sin i láthair na huaire.

Tá an Rialtas ag déanamh mór dó féin ag teacht isteach anseo agus ag tabhairt cúpla céad euro in aghaidh na bliana do daoine aonaracha i gcáin ioncaim agus míle nó dhó le cúnamh leanaí. Ní faic sin i ndáiríre i gcomparáid leis an chostas uafásach atá curtha ar ghnáth-lucht oibre le blianta beaga anuas i gcostais millteanacha ó thaobh tithíochta agus cánach faoi-cheilt. Is sin an saol réadúil atá ag cur buairimh ar ghnáth-daoine anois.

Tá súil agam go mbeidh díospóireacht i bhfad níos leithne agus réadúla ar na ceisteanna seo chomh fada agus a bhainfidh siad le buiséid sna blianta os ár gcomhair.

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