Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

This Bill was drafted by a generation of politicians and mandarins who have their mortgages paid and have, for the most part, reared their children. It shows blatant disregard for people of my generation who will end up being saddled with the burden of the economic morass in which we find ourselves for the rest of their working lives. If we are to inject some equity into the process of economic recovery, it must be done on the basis that everybody will take the pain equally.

One cannot take €1,500 from somebody in the public sector who is earning €30,000 or €1,875 from somebody who is earning €35,000, while introducing a carbon tax which will affect the ability of such people to get to and from their place of work on a daily basis. Such people will also be affected by the impact on them of the potential mortgage increases they may incur in the future.

I have a short time in which to speak on this issue. It is a sad indictment of this Parliament that we cannot debate these measures in a proper fashion with real discourse. The strike by the public sector was ill-timed, in that we all had to buy into the idea that there would be a reduction in the public sector pay bill. I also believed in the bona fides of a Government and a trade union hierarchy to hammer out a deal that would ensure those earning incomes of less then €50,000 would not incur any further pain as a result of measures which might have to be implemented and those earning between €50,000 and €100,000, would have a minuscule percentage cut in their salaries and they would be benchmarked against cuts in the private sector.

We have a situation whereby a single person who earns €52,000 per annum in the private sector incurs no cut to his or her salary, but somebody who earns €50,000 in the public sector will incur a cut of €3,000 or 6%. There is no equity in such a situation. If anybody in the Government tells us that everybody has to incur pain, the proof of that view is not evident in such budgetary measures. I am quoting from the very document the Minister for Finance, Deputy Lenihan, laid before the House when he announced his budget last week.

All we are asking for is a review of the cuts to people on the lower end of the public sector wage scales. One cannot expect a single female clerical officer who works in a local authority, has taken out a mortgage in the past three years and now has to pay increased charges for her petrol to get to work to incur a cut of €1,500 to €2,200 in her salary. It is completely inequitable. I know it and the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, in his heart of hearts, knows it. I believe his words are correct, he told us to reverse the cuts would cost the Exchequer €500 million.

He never examined the quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations. He did not adequately examine those earning more than €250,000. It is time the Government looked equitably at those who will now bear the brunt. The new poor now exist in our society. A person who incurs a cut of €1,500 will not be able to survive in real terms and the Government should not patronise such people by telling them it has reduced the cost of living by 6% because that will not wash.

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