Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I wish to emphasise the point made by Deputy Noonan, in terms of the impact of what is proposed in the budget on single income families. The debate we had on tax individualisation a number of years ago when the former Minister, Mr. McCreevy introduced it and the debate which has developed since then comes back onto the table here.

If one looks at the annexes provided in the Supplementary Budget Statement, it can be seen that a family with two children and a single income of approximately €75,000 is losing more than €4,000 of its income. A double income family with exactly the same income loses just over €2,000. There are many families who are changing from having two incomes to one income at the moment because of the number of people who are losing their jobs. We are widening the gap between the unfairness of treatment in the taxation system between single income and double income families on exactly the same household income. I appeal to Government to look at that issue. I do not want to get involved in the other debate, which is more political.

I wish to raise another, more general issue which is linked to this. If one looks at table 7 in the budget, which contains budgetary projections from 2009 to 2013, one can see net current expenditure, as well as gross current expenditure increasing dramatically over that period. I cannot understand that rationale. Clearly, the major problem for the State regarding the current deficit is because we have allowed current expenditure to increase on the back of an unsustainable income that has now collapsed, in terms of taxation revenue. Yet, we are continuing to pursue a net current expenditure programme which increases from €46 billion this year to €54 billion in 2013.

In doing that we are requiring revenue to chase and overtake it to try and close the deficit problem. I cannot understand the rationale behind allowing current expenditure to dramatically increase over a five year period at a time when we are trying to close the deficit. The result of that will be increased pressure on the Government to raise more and more revenue through more and more taxation which will have knock-on impacts on everything from competitiveness to jobs, spending, confidence and all the other things. I ask the Taoiseach to try to help us understand the rationale behind current expenditure projections in the context of the major challenge we face to close the deficit and raise extra tax revenue.

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