Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The very fact that this levy is entirely lacking in discrimination is my main reason for opposing resolution No. 1. Some 660,000 people were exempt from income tax before today. They will now be brought into the tax net within the remit of this 1% levy without any discrimination, discernment or regard to their conditions. It is not simply a 1% levy for high earners and middle-income earners. It includes those on the minimum wage, the casual and part-time worker and those who were previously never in the tax net.

The Government long boasted about its objective to affect the marginal rate at only 20% of taxpayers. That has never been achieved. We used to hammer away at that on the benches and the Department of Finance changed the system of calculating those in the marginal rate. The band rates broadly broke down to about one third in each rate. Now, up to 660,000 people will be liable under this levy. That is the major objection to the levy.

This is a nightmare budget that focuses merely on where revenue can be raised. Everything that moves has been taxed. Earlier, a colleague asked me what we were going to say about the resolutions. I said we would be supporting some of them and vehemently opposing others. He said, "You must be mad; can you imagine what Fianna Fáil would do to you if you had won the election?"

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