Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank Deputy Rabbitte and the Labour Party for sharing time with me. I begin by stating my complete opposition, and that of my party, to this legislation. The title of this Bill, Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill 2009, is a fraudulent statement in itself. There is nothing in this Bill which is in the public interest and nothing in the Minister's statement which gives me any hope that this Government will address our public finance problems.

Fraud is a term I do not use lightly but there is a culture of fraud endemic in our banking system which has been part of every Fianna Fáil-led Government over the past three decades and has dogged each Fianna Fáil Taoiseach since Charles Haughey. When the identity of the golden circle finally becomes clear we will see once again that this Government is complicit in deceit and corruption.

The Minister has claimed that this so-called pension levy — I agree with Deputy Gogarty in that it is a wage cut and should be called nothing else — is a fair measure and that the deduction is progressive. This is a question of equity. Where is the fairness in a worker earning €11,975 per annum being made to take a wage cut without having entitlement to a pension? Such people would pay a pension levy with no entitlement to a pension, which is bizarre. Where is the fairness in a public service worker earning €35,000 paying a 6% levy when his or her boss on €350,000 pays only 5% in real terms? This is not equity. Where is the fairness in workers being taxed by means of a levy on non-pensionable pay?

It is disappointing that the Minister's statement clearly shows he has no intention of making concessions or accepting amendments. He will proceed without listening to anybody. Everybody in this country accepts that tough measures must be taken but we do not accept that low and middle income earners — the majority of Irish workers — should be made bear the brunt of our public finances while the wealthy and those vested interests who have poisoned our economy are left undisturbed.

We have seen that when tax relief is applied, the wealthy are refunded. This perverse measure means that the higher the salary the higher the relief. My party proposed last October that tax relief should be standardised as a fairer form of raising income. The Minister has continued to ignore this and seems to be determined to find revenue by taxing the working poor. The Minister, as well as IBEC and some media commentators, has misrepresented how public pensions are funded. The reality is that many public workers pay for their pension fund through their own incomes. For example, the HSE paid 6.8% of its total salary to this end, with 6.5% deriving from the staff salary bill. Therefore, if the pensions are for the most part paid by the workers themselves, it is a lie to call this a pension levy.

What are the Minister's ultimate intentions with regard to section 9 of the Bill? Under section 9, he provides for regulations to impose an 8% cut for health professionals. Does this include consultants, with whom his colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney, agreed a €250,000 a year contract for a four day week? If this is not the case, why not? That €250,000 per annum is merely starting pay, many consultants' salaries go up to €500,000 and beyond.

Since the Minister is going after health professionals' fees, why does he not address the scandalous private, for-profit hospital charges to the taxpayer for the use of their medical facilities? Why are clinics such as the Mater Private allowed to charge €1,000 a night for their bed and breakfast facilities, and how can private hospitals continue to charge more than €800 per patient for the same treatment under the National Treatment Purchase Fund, not to mention the vast, unquantifiable sums of money foregone in tax exemptions to private hospitals?

For the last six months Irish people have been looking for an economic recovery plan. People want to see a Government strategy to create jobs. With over 150,000 workers laid off in the past 12 months, jobs should be the priority. Retaining jobs and creating new ones will ultimately address the problems with our public finances. The Government has shown no initiative, no imagination and no indication that it has a clue what it is doing. While the Government robs €1 billion from public sector workers, it has not spent a cent to create jobs. While it is cutting back on 128 special needs classes, it has done nothing to open up credit for SMEs. While it was excluding parents from the early child care supplement, it has failed to halt the avalanche of factory closures that is destroying the lives of families across the State.

Besides taking a chainsaw to the pay of low and middle income earners, this Government has not done a single thing other than pour €7 billion of taxpayers' money into the black hole of the corrupt banking sector. As the Minister hands over these billions, he refuses to release information on the ten mystery men. This is public money and it was extraordinary that we, as the owners of Anglo Irish Bank, are not entitled to find out who these people are, when they will repay the loans, if they will even be asked to repay the loans or if the Minister will go after them.

My party has given numerous examples of where real waste exists, such as in the area of outsourcing. We must stop outsourcing, which is wasting millions of euro of taxpayers' money. We must rein in the CEOs of State bodies, some of whom are paid more than €500,000 per annum, and we must impose a new contract on Irish hospital consultants.

This Government is failing to deliver for Irish people, it is failing to restore confidence to people. Irish workers, public and private, must stay united in these difficult times. They must oppose the opportunistic measures the Government is trying to impose.

I wish ICTU well in the march planned for Saturday for justice, equity, solidarity and fair play, so that it is not just one sector of society that is being asked to deal with all the problems in the public finances and the economy.

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