Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy O'Mahony.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this rather unambitious legislation. I was amused to hear the Minister of State, Deputy Martin Mansergh, criticise the Opposition for commenting on issues which affect their constituencies given he had welcomed the measures in respect of relief on excise duty which will assist people in his constituency. The Minister of State cannot have it both ways.

My concern is that this legislation comprises a multitude of traps which will put further pressure on already crucified Irish households. When speaking on last year's Finance Bill I described these households as "struggling". This year, I genuinely believe many are way past struggling. At a meeting last week of the Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs, at which the Acting Chairman, Deputy O'Connor, was present and the issue of mortgage related debt was discussed, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Mary Hanafin, described members of the committee, myself included, as "alarmist". I am alarmed. Anyone with any idea of what is going on would be alarmed. The alarm bells have been ringing and the Government has been given plenty of warning, but it has chosen to ignore them.

People are in dire difficulty. How can I, or any of my colleagues, not be alarmed when I must negotiate with a mortgage provider on behalf of a constituent who is so despairing that he wants to end his life? That is the reality of the position in which people whose family homes are being repossessed are finding themselves. The man concerned believed he had failed his family because their home was repossessed. People are coming into our constituency offices to discuss the financial mess they are in, many of whom were self-employed and are now not entitled to anything owing to the class of stamp they paid. The reality of what we are dealing with on a day to day basis does alarm me.

The Finance Bill 2010 fails to do anything to help people. While, as Deputy Kelly mentioned, it contains a proposal to extend mortgage interest relief, one can only obtain that relief if one is earning an income on which one pays tax in the first instance. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of people are not in that position, thousands of whom have mortgages. The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources announced a few weeks ago, prior to the publication of this Bill, that this matter would be addressed in the Finance Bill 2010 but there is nothing in it which does so. I am sure there were many experts, including financial experts, involved in drafting this Bill. The Government has set up another group of experts to examine the issue of mortgage debt. How much advice does the Government need? This issue has been considered by FLAC, the Law Reform Commission and the Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs, and various people in the financial services area have submitted papers on it. In the meantime, while all this is happening, the Minister of State has set up another group. Thousands of families and home-owners go further down the spiral of debt and are closer to losing their homes, but they must wait longer for a solution. While they are waiting their homes become less valuable, their debts rise, and their credit rating is permanently damaged. Now they face a myriad of extra taxes and charges on top of pay cuts and levies. People expected some level of pay cuts and tax changes, but the way in which the Minister of State has gone about it is desperately unfair. The notion that certain people within the public service will take a smaller percentage cut than all lower grades sticks in people's throats. It makes it impossible for them not to be utterly disillusioned and frustrated.

The Minister of State has asked Fine Gael for alternatives, but when they are produced he does not listen to them. He does not want to know. He wants us to produce them for the sake of the exercise, but they are not examined. No doubt several speakers on the Government benches will say "Fine Gael never provided alternatives", but we did. They should read what Deputy Richard Bruton had to say yesterday on the Finance Bill and even before the budget was published. There were fairer alternatives. Last week, I saw one Fianna Fáil backbencher come into a committee and after all the Opposition speakers had made their contributions, he accused us of not providing alternatives. He was not even there to hear the alternatives we had put forward, which makes a mockery of the exercise we were going through.

Fine Gael does not apologise for wanting to protect those on incomes under €30,000 from paycuts because we see how impossible it is for them to survive at present. Yet the Government looks at performance-related pay as part of a basic package, rather than as an exceptional payment for working harder, smarter, better and being exceptional. Maybe those who are not going to take the same level of paycuts will not notice the removal of tax relief from bin charges or raising VAT on local authority charges, but hundreds of thousands of others will. Where has the green influence gone that we were supposed to get? It is all about money now and the Greens are happy because on paper they think they have an influence. In reality, however, every household will pay more for refuse collection, coal, briquettes, home heating oil and, let us face it, soon for water. The purpose of these carbon or green taxes is supposed to change our behaviour and teach us to reduce consumption. It is supposed to make us more conscious of the value of these scarce resources, but the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has fallen perfectly into Fianna Fáil's web of regarding these charges merely as a means of making money. It is no longer about using less and changing behaviour. In fact, many Government Deputies have spoken about the amounts of money they hope to raise through these taxes instead of the target being to reduce usage. What is worse is that these charges will proportionately affect the worst off the most, taking far bigger portions of the household budgets of less well off people than those who are better off. This is despite the fact that they cannot afford to make their homes more energy efficient because the grants have not gone far enough.

Where is the overall plan in this Bill? I often wonder about the level of communication Ministers have with each other, both in Cabinet and elsewhere. We are in an employment crisis of huge proportions, yet there seems to be no co-ordination between Ministers to tackle it. The Ministers for Social and Family Affairs, Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and Education and Science should work together constantly to co-ordinate solutions. Instead, however, responsibilities are fragmented between Departments and there is no co-ordination. Effectively, we need a Minister for work to get Ireland back to work. That is where the concentration should be. There is so much nonsense in the system that it makes it impractical.

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