Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

This budget is not as crude as that for the election year of 2002, but when the sums are done, one sees that it is not that far out. This is the fifth budget from the Government since the last general election, and we are entitled to consider its overall record and not simply the measures announced today. The plain truth is that the tax justice agenda was stalled for the first three budgets since the last election. There was no reduction in tax rates in four successive budgets, only increases in VAT that were paid for the most part by families on modest and lower incomes. It is curious that this period of zero reductions in tax rates coincided with the arrival of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, as a full member of Cabinet. It is an amazing legacy for somebody who talks endlessly about tax cuts that he failed to secure a single one in four years.

Instead of tax cuts in those four years, most working taxpayers had to pay more. The standard rate band was frozen in value for two years and more workers than ever — almost a third, or 666,000 — paid tax at the higher marginal rate. This amounted to an effective tax increase for such persons. Today's reductions are no more than delayed compensation for the punitive measures imposed in three budgets, as well as the unjust and unfair increase in the VAT rate, which has still not been rescinded.

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