Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Has the Minister any idea how long it took his predecessor, the former Deputy McCreevy, to swim from Inchydoney to the shores of Belgium when he was thrown overboard after the meeting with Fr. Seán Healy? As well as creating open season for pensions and all manner of extraordinary arrangements for the wealthiest, he gave them tax-free holidays and a scenario where people with income in excess of €1 million per annum paid no tax.

Allied to that was the extraordinary meanness of the former Deputy McCreevy. He established a scenario where although the Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats manifestos and the programme for Government contained solemn undertakings that only 20% of taxpayers would pay tax at the top rate, to this day the current figure for those paying at the top rate is more than 31%. By the time we get the figures at the end of the year, it will probably be more than 32%.

When historians come to look at the Minister's budget, on the issue of tax relief for middle income earners they will find he was very mean in relative terms because tax revenues have continued to soar ahead. He has continued to maintain a plethora of tax breaks for the very wealthy, working on the principle of St. Augustine: "Lord, let me introduce reform, but not just yet". The dates for most of the Minister's proposed reforms are anytime after the middle of next year to the middle of 2008.

Sceptics among us might argue that we have been here before. From time to time, the former Deputy McCreevy announced the closure of various tax breaks and then re-opened them in the course of several budgets. We know the Minister intends to limit some of them, but whether that will happen, I do not know.

I do not see why the Minister should get agitated when we, on this side of the House, say that the former Deputy McCreevy was taken out, thrown overboard and left to swim from Inchydoney to Brussels, much to his horror and discomfort. He has never been happy in dealing with the services directive in quite the way he was when he chirped away in the Department of Finance. That is how the Minister, Deputy Cowen, has come to be here. We are entitled to measure his achievement, if any, against the promises made by his party and in An Agreed Programme for Government. The most fundamental promise was that the majority of taxpayers would pay tax at the standard rate and the Minister has failed lamentably in two budgets to deliver one iota on that. Instead, he has tinkered with closing off some of the tax breaks for the very wealthy, but it is too early to say whether that will work because we do not know if he will simply extend the dates again in due course. That is what his predecessor did.

Everything is relative. The Minister will tell the House that in 1977, when the late Jack Lynch was Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil was in power at the beginning of its glorious revolution, marginal tax rates were extraordinarily high. Of course they were. They were so under Mr. Haughey and under various Fine Gael and Labour Party Administrations. However, they have been brought down consistently, with one exception. Single PAYE workers who earn slightly more than the average industrial wage and who do a little overtime or receive a bonus pay tax on this at 42%.

No amount of throwing shapes changes the fact that the biggest con job carried out by the Minister's predecessor, the former Deputy McCreevy, was to promise that only 20% of taxpayers would pay tax at the top rate. The Minister or his Government has never come near to honouring that commitment. On many occasions, his colleague, the Tánaiste, has said that this is primary value for the Progressive Democrats. His colleague, the Taoiseach, has said on many occasions that it is an outrage that some millionaires pay no tax. When it came to this year's budget, nonetheless, the Minister again continued to milk the ordinary PAYE taxpayer. Equity is a relative entity. People on modest incomes are justified in looking over the fence at the kind of people found in the tent at the Galway races and asking what it is that is so special about them that they should benefit from the extraordinary regime of tax benefits introduced by Fianna Fáil. What is so special about these people? I acknowledge and am pleased that they are entrepreneurs. I am delighted that their businesses are doing well and hope they continue to do prosper. However, what is wrong with them paying their fair share of tax? What is wrong with the Minister giving ordinary PAYE taxpayers a break?

Nothing the Minister says about the state of the economy nine or 20 years ago can detract from the fact that his budget gives away approximately €3.4 billion in pension reliefs, most of it to the higher paid. He is failing to fulfil the primary promise made year after year by this Government since it assumed power that only 20% of PAYE taxpayers would pay tax at 42%. The percentage of PAYE taxpayers who pay tax at this rate is almost 32% in draft form, so the Minister is very far away from his target.

When I heard the Minister speak on budget day, I wondered why he was so timid in respect of a promise which was freely given and repeated time after time by his Government. There is plenty of money with which to address this promise. It might mean taking a few bob off the people who frequent the tent at the Galway races and making them cough up a little bit more. Seeing as these individuals have made so much money, I do not see why they should not be happy to contribute slightly to the nation's welfare. They will die like the rest of us and, like the rest of us, their bequest to their children will be the type of society they helped create. I do not understand why the fundamental Fianna Fáil promise, which is also a fundamental Fianna Fáil problem, was abandoned by the Government. The Minister can revisit the records of every other party in this House but his Government has been in power for nine years. The Minister was assigned his post to right some of the wrongs of his predecessor and bring some notion of fairness to the tax code. Until some sense of fairness is introduced in respect of the 32% of PAYE taxpayers who pay tax at the top rate, the Government's primary election promise will remain a broken promise.

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