Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)

In her speech on budget day, the Minister of State, Deputy Róisín Shortall, correctly described the universal social charge as a tax on the working poor. It is another tax on the working poor. For many of those working poor, it is literally the difference between being able to make ends meet or not.

During the course of the election I had the experience of going to the house of a woman, a single parent who has a low-income job in the public service and is paid €760 a fortnight. She told me her target was to have €5 left over every Monday morning so she could have enough petrol in her car to drive her daughter the few miles to school in Tralee. Her daughter is 17 years of age, is in her leaving certificate year and hopes to get a place in Mary Immaculate College and become a primary school teacher. The mother does not drink, smoke or socialise. In another house I visited I met a couple and what struck me when I entered their house was how cold it was. That was because they did not have enough money to pay for oil for heating. They could only buy oil in five or ten-gallon drums and could not fill their oil tank. These examples demonstrate the state the country is in and the state in which the working poor are living. The working poor are penalised by the political establishment. I cannot fathom how no Government has the guts to challenge the wealthy and elite of this country. How is it that when the Government needs finance and must impose taxes it targets the weakest and most vulnerable in society? In the past few hours, we have debated the Moriarty report, Denis O'Brien and what went on at the time. Now, once again the elite have managed to compromise the political establishment and the House. That is what the universal social charge is about.

The Labour Party is in coalition with and supports the Government. The Labour Party gave commitments during the election that it would introduce a third rate of tax and abolish the universal social charge. However, it has moved away from that position. Why is that? Is it because we take it for granted that the working poor will accept their lot? It is time for our politicians here to be prompted by their social conscience and for our elected representatives to stand up for those most in need. They must bring a conscience back into this Chamber, a conscience that will deliver for working people throughout the country. It is time and not before time for the trade union leadership, which expressed its opposition to the universal social charge and supported the Labour Party during the general election, to use its influence on the elected Labour Party representatives. It must use its influence to bring a conscience back into the Labour Party, a conscience that will deliver for the poor in society and for those who are marginalised, discriminated against and damn well blackguarded by the political establishment of this island and House.

I challenge every Deputy on the Government side of the House to state categorically that they will abolish this unjust and unfair tax on the poor in our society. They must come out and stand by workers and ensure they will do all in their power to ensure that those who have most will pay most in order to get us out of this mess. We must not continue to penalise the poor. Sinn Féin will stand by the working poor and will be there to represent them and be a voice for what, in many instances, is a voiceless community. The Labour Party should stand by its roots and James Connolly. Would James Connolly be proud of a Labour Party in government with a right wing party that is imposing further tax on the poor? The Labour Party needs to ask that question. It should stand up for the poor in society and not get into bed with right wing politics that has contaminated the political system and the State.

When we vote on this issue tomorrow night, the Labour Party Members should remember that if they vote for the so-called review, they are voting to push the issue down the road and forget about it. They are voting for shoving it down the road so that the people forget about it because once it has been implemented the people get accustomed to it. If they vote for that, the Labour Party Members are voting for the universal social charge as implemented, further penalisation of the working poor, a continuance of everything that has been done before they came into power, and voting to protect the likes of Denis O'Brien and his cohorts. They will perpetrate an awful injustice on the people if they go down that road.

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