Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I propose to share time with Deputies Healy, McHugh and Sargent.

This legislation fails to fulfill what should be the primary objective of tax policy, that is, to make the tax system equitable and progressive and redistribute wealth in favour of the less well-off. Under a progressive tax regime, those who have more pay more, while those who have less pay less. The system is regressive as the opposite is the case here.

The extent to which the system is regressive was demonstrated in the review of tax reliefs, finally published in recent days. It clearly illustrates that the tax policies pursued by the Government have enabled the wealthy to further enrich themselves at the expense of the ordinary tax compliant PAYE worker. It is astounding to read that certain individuals took €25 million in tax free lump sums from their €100 million pension funds. It is no wonder that the recently published NESF report entitled, Creating a More Inclusive Labour Market, found that we had a wealthier but more unequal society and that the richest 20% of the population earned 12 times as much as the poorest 20%. This regressive tax system is matched by an abject failure to tackle growing wage differentials.

My party, Sinn Féin, has long been critical of the Government's plethora of tax exemptions and reliefs, more accurately described as tax expenditures. We have been particularly critical of the many property based tax reliefs. We pointed out the extent to which these were being used by the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share of taxation. We now have confirmation that €3 billion in tax revenue was lost to the State as a result of such reliefs——

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