Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The Finance Bill is the product of a budget which promised the biggest bonanza in history. As the Minister delivers his Bill, it is clear that the anomalies, uncertainties and inequalities which pepper the whole tax system remain unaddressed by him. He began the year with the €184 billion national development plan. When figures are that large, they tend to become meaningless for people who work and do not earn more than €50,000 or €60,000 a year. The Minister for Finance is a former Minister for Health and Children and I would like to focus his attention on a concrete issue.

The Alzheimer's disease ward in my local hospital, James Connolly Memorial Hospital, named after James Connolly by the late Dr. Noel Browne, does not have an adequate supply of hot water. Speaking about a sum of €184 billion and tens of millions of euro in tax breaks, somebody such as the Minister in a leadership position should be able to consider why we are like kids in a sweet shop. Although we have so much money, we do not have an adequate supply of hot water for patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease. That is possibly one of the reasons the electorate wants a change of Government. The people yearn to see all the money being put to good use. The strong economy of which we are understandably all proud does not mean much if patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease cannot be washed with hot water.

In previous discussions on the Finance Bill I proposed a standing tax reform commission to address the anomalies in the tax system on an ongoing basis to ensure we could understand the purpose of an incentive; if it met its goal; and whether it could be continued indefinitely, changed or renewed. These are complex issues and there are not always easy yes or no answers.

I wish to highlight an issue of which many are strongly aware, the challenges presented by climate change and global warming and the dangers posed or opportunities provided in dealing with the issue from an economic perspective. The Minister is Minister Bigfoot in terms of the carbon footprint stamped by the Department on behalf of Ireland. The Government has a pollute now and pay later policy. Our children and grandchildren will be bequeathed this legacy, for which they will pay dearly. Just as most Irish people are aware that this is one of the critical issues facing us, we understand that this week the EPA will report on Ireland's position on climate change and that its report will leave us hanging our heads, particularly on the issue of transport emissions. In our great cities and towns we really only have a skeleton public transport system in place to show for the Government's ten years in power and all the money in the sweet shop.

The Minister's attempts to meet the Government's Kyoto Protocol commitments will be exposed as a complete failure of action. He has set aside in the budget €270 million to pay for carbon credits. Most do not understand that carbon credits are really fines that the Minister will pay through the Kyoto Protocol mechanism for our failure to reduce our carbon emissions to the level promised. The taxpayers, when they hear that the Government is lining up to pay €270 million — many analysts have suggested that figure will possibly double — in carbon credit fines will see this is a failure of leadership which will cost the country dearly. The old style public service would never have dreamed of lashing out €270 million in fines. We all would have been so shocked we would not have allowed it to happen and would have sought ways to reduce our emissions rather than pay the fines. It is one reason the electorate is considering, and I think will vote for, an alternative Government because the Minister has not addressed this issue by giving any meaningful leadership.

The Finance Bill is an attempt to long-finger getting to grips with climate change until the general election is safely out of the way, even in the case of large car emissions where the Minister sent a postcard to his colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to let people offer their insights, or "ideas on a postcard, please", as to whether polluting SUVs or other cars which are heavy polluters ought to pay a little more tax. Talk about abandoning any concept of leadership in this booming economy; there is no hot water for Alzheimer's disease sufferers in hospital and he sends a postcard to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government about vehicle emissions just when the EPA will announce, apparently later this week, that Ireland has far exceeded the commitments to which the Government signed up.

Other countries can provide public service vehicles, including buses, which run on biofuel mixes. In many major cities all over the world young Irish people see signs stating the bus is running on a clean fuel source. Our young people are used to taking metro systems. They are accustomed to taking public transport, not the train from Clonsilla, popularly known as the Calcutta express, which has only a small number of carriages and on which people regularly faint as it is so crowded. This is the Minister's answer to problems of climate change.

The Minister seems to be unwilling to offer any leadership. Most countries operate wind energy regimes which provide small, but significant, alternative energy sources to carbon. Incidentally, countries such as Denmark have grown a vibrant economic sector out of the development of alternative fuel strategies, both in building components for capturing wind energy and in all the design elements involved. Denmark, like Ireland, is a small country with a critical urban-rural mix. It tries to balance this mix and is doing so somewhat successfully.

Much of our carbon usage literally goes up in smoke. Where is the imagination to insulate the tens of thousands of inadequately insulated homes, many of which were built in the construction boom in recent years? Could the Government not even look after the inadequately insulated homes of older people? Pollute now and pay later is the underlying message of this Finance Bill on climate change.

In recent days Chambers Ireland produced an interesting idea, that there should be a shadow carbon tax to give a sense of what it would cost to rebalance the tax system to take account of climate change and reduce that fine of over €270 million which the Minister, according to his budget speech, plans to pay. There is much that can be done, but the Minister is avoiding leadership on this issue and one of the reasons we need a change of Government is that we need fresh leadership to address these important issues.

There are a number of areas which affect hard-working families which I want to address in some detail in this Bill. My party has also called for and tabled amendments to create an office of taxpayers' advocate or ombudsman to ensure PAYE workers get the tax breaks and refunds due in respect of health expenses, bin charges, etc. This is my fifth year to put this forward. I acknowledge that the Revenue Commissioners have taken steps to improve people's access to information about collecting various tax refunds and breaks to which they are entitled. The Minister is more than willing to give the hand to the stallion owners and those in the construction industry who need their bit of a break, but he is far behind when it comes to PAYE workers getting the tax allowances and breaks to which they are entitled. Perhaps it will appear in the Fianna Fáil manifesto. Perhaps the Minister is saving the taxpayers' advocate and ombudsman and the standing tax commission for this. Perhaps we will convert him yet.

I want to mention individualisation. There is now a gap of more than €5,000, whereby single income families face a significant tax disadvantage compared to families where both parents are working. In a country where child care is so expensive and where housing is now so dispersed, particularly in the greater Dublin area and Leinster, many parents have no option but for one of them to give up work when their children are young, particularly if they have two or more children, never mind that the family may decide that doing so is in the best interests of the family. That is not addressed at all in the Finance Bill. The Minister has allowed the gap to widen.

The Minister has proposals in the Bill for some stamp duty reforms, including a confirmation that families may gift a site up to €254,000 or up to one acre to a child or children free of stamp duty and capital tax. While the Minister argues, understandably, that these measures are a tightening of existing schemes which have emerged as being far too generous, as valuable lands of as much as ten acres including quarries, etc., have been gifted to children who have avoided stamp duty and, presumably, other capital taxes, this is startling news to ordinary PAYE workers who do not own lands or sites to gift to their children. Their children must pay stamp duty on a second-hand house costing over €317,500, even if he or she is a first-time buyer, or if he or she is trading up from a first home to a modest family home when they have children. In the long run, we want families to be successful in Ireland. Much of our future economic prospects are built on this.

New tax breaks for property-based development were included by the Minister in the Bill. Last year the Minister, the Taoiseach and even the Tánaiste agreed with me that it was scandalous that millionaires paid no tax, and that most of the people who got away with paying little or no tax received tax breaks. A single person pays tax at the rate of 41% once his or her earnings exceed €34,000. The Minister must contrast this with a person who will now receive a whole new set of tax breaks for developments related to tourism, particularly hotel and holiday cottage building in the mid-Shannon region.

See this speech in context