Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

My contribution yesterday dealt with how the Government is focusing almost entirely on bailing out the banks and rescuing the developers while, on the other hand, special needs assistants in schools are being laid off in their hundreds. I wonder if the Government is aware of the consequences of its actions, including slashing social welfare, on very poor and low income families. The Government should have focused on the real economy. A stimulus package should have been introduced. Jobs are not going to create themselves; entrepreneurs need some assistance to get the show back on the road. The Government has been completely lacking in that regard.

From reading the newspapers in the past number of days one can see the level of job losses announced. Halifax announced 750 job losses, some 130 of which are in my constituency, and a further 200 jobs are likely to be lost in the mid-Louth area in Bitech Engineering. The Government is doing nothing about these job losses. It is time that it recognised the cruelty of the fact that 20% of those on the live register are under 25 years of age. Yet, there is no effort from the Government to get such people back to work. In fact, they are being blocked from getting back to education. I am sure other Deputies, like myself, have received a huge number of representations from people under 25 years of age who find there are serious obstacles put in their way in terms of trying to get back to education and training, which are not being provided for them.

The Finance Bill should have completely overhauled the taxation system. It has done virtually nothing. There has been a little bit of tweaking, such as the €200,000 levy on tax exiles. To a billionaire €200,000 is just pocket money - the levy could be three times its existing rate in order to have some impact on them. While we should recognise it as a start, it does not go anywhere near far enough. There are some 6,000 people currently registered with the Revenue Commissioners as tax exiles and the levy does not impact sufficiently on those people, many of whom are extremely wealthy. To many of us a levy of €200,000 is a substantial sum but to the people to which I referred it is a drop in the ocean.

This is a cruel budget and Bill. It will not solve the problem. It does nothing to try to sort out the economic mess, which is most unfortunate because an opportunity has been lost.

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