Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

Could the Government have done this deliberately or is it only able to spend money and does not know how to make adjustments? Any Government that claims it is going to protect the poor and hit the wealthy while creating the budgetary hole I have just described should resign immediately. It is a strange sort of social justice to bring forward a budget like that.

I do not know whether the Minister intended this measure but it appears to me that Fianna Fáil continues to look after its friends. It should erect the Galway tent in front of Government Buildings and get the Green Party Ministers to act as doormen because they will let in more than they keep out. I cannot get over the rank stupidity and incompetence of this decision from a political point of view. Despite all the support available to the Government, it only ran the income examples up to €175,000. Every tax consultant around the country is ringing his or her local Deputy to point out that the wealthy will pay 3% less when the income and health levies are turned into a social charge. They are making enormous gains not in theory or through tax breaks or avoidance, but in hard cash.

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