Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)

With the permission of the House I will share time with Deputies Tom Fleming, Stephen Donnelly and Clare Daly.

The performance of our colleague, Deputy Buttimer, is more reminiscent of the stage of the Abbey Theatre than of this House. He told us this was a brave and courageous initiative. I am sure he knows, because his Minister has already said it, that this is a very modest proposal. In fact, it is a minor proposal and totally inadequate to deal with the current unemployment crisis and recession. It does not bear any resemblance to the promises made by Fine Gael or the Labour Party during the recent general election campaign, when we were promised 100,000 jobs and 50,000 training places. While the Bill contains welcome elements, the Minister is right in saying it is a very modest and inadequate proposal.

Deputy Buttimer said there is no pot of gold and nothing in the Bill for the rich and powerful. He is wrong on both counts. I remember the 1980s when we went on PAYE marches and when hospitals and hospital wards were closing. At that time we were told there was no pot of gold. Some people were foolish enough to believe that. Very shortly afterwards we discovered that the rich and powerful had salted their wealth away in every nook and cranny they could find and sent most of it out of the country to offshore bank accounts.

Similarly today, there is a pot of gold. It contains the personal assets of the 6% of the Irish people who are super-rich, who have €250 billion in assets and who do not pay one ha'penny in assets tax. Deputy Buttimer is right about one thing. There is nothing in the Bill for the rich and powerful. There is no assets tax and no attempt to make the rich and powerful pay any of the costs of the recession. Not only does the Bill not contain an assets tax but the rich are exempt from the pensions levy. Very wealthy people can put huge sums of money into pension accounts that are exempt from the levy. There is a pot of gold, but have we the political will to go after it? The Bill contains no provision for the taxation of very wealthy people and they are exempt from the pension levy.

Deputy Buttimer also told us the Government would pay its debts. He suggested we should be proud of that. The EU and the IMF are not good Samaritans taking a neighbour out of trouble. European bankers who gambled recklessly and lost are now demanding that Irish taxpayers pay for their losses. They want an each-way bet on their reckless gambling. They want the Irish taxpayer, low and middle income families and the poor to pay.

There is no debt. This is a rip-off. The so-called payment of our debt means an unprecedented assault on living standards, mass unemployment, 100,000 emigrants per year, cuts in social welfare, tax increases and the continuation of the universal social charge which, during the general election campaign, the Government parties promised to review and scrap. The Government had an opportunity to review the charge in the Bill but it has not done so. We have long waiting lists in hospitals, patients on trolleys in hospital wards and special needs assistants and resource teachers sacked in our schools. In the last few days it was announced that 150 resource teachers have been withdrawn.

Rather than something to be proud of, the payment of this so-called debt - or rip-off - is something to be ashamed of. We must ensure that very wealthy people pay their fair share. They are paying nothing at present and they need to pay a once-off significant levy and a 5% assets tax for the future.

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