Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 11:

In page 10, line 6, column (1), to delete "€32,000" and substitute "€34,000".

The truth is that this Government said, on taking office for the second time, that the key target it had for tax was to reduce the proportion of people paying at the top rate to 20%. That is now 32% and is way ahead of what was proposed. The Minister has let down 246,000 taxpayers who would not be paying at the top rate of tax if the commitment had been honoured. One hits the top rate of tax now at €32,000 for a single person. That is no more than the average industrial wage. Indeed, it is way below the average industrial wage in the public service, in distribution or in most of the private sector.

This is an area where Government has failed by its own standard to deliver what it set out to do. It is not that it has been short of tax money. In the space of just 12 months, the increase in revenue collected by this Minister between his budget speech this year and the one he made in 2005, is €5.2 billion. That is an astonishing increase in tax revenue, but resources could not be managed in such a way as to deliver commitments that were made in the general election and subsequently in An Agreed Programme for Government. It is a reflection on the inability to manage resources effectively.

This is not the only commitment made that has been airbrushed away. There were commitments to end hospital waiting lists in two years, reduce class sizes for children under nine etc. These have been airbrushed away and the resources have not been well managed by any standard.

The Minister might say that this is an easy amendment to table and that is true. However, I tabled it precisely because it is the type of amendment the Government said it was going to deliver when it put together its programme for Government and which it has lamentably failed to do.

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