Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

Given the aspirations that have been voiced by some colleagues regarding the need to fund investment and job creation, the only question that matters is where we will get the money to do it. In his contribution, Deputy Healy was honest enough to say that is the question that must be answered and he said he would answer it. Some of his colleagues looked at him with concern and Members on this side looked at him with anticipation because they wonder where the money for all of this is to be found. The answer trotted out was the introduction of a wealth tax here. Let us be clear. There is no economy in Europe that has put in place a wealth tax that has not resulted in the middle classes and any owners of property having to pay additional tax as a result. That is the way a wealth tax is implemented. The idea of introducing a new tax to tax wealth that is resident in Ireland is the kind of measure that will result in a further flight of deposits from our banking system, resulting in taxpayers being asked to cough up more to deal with that. If that happened, those people on the Opposition side of the House would be the first to protest against the introduction of such a measure.

A further incoherent suggestion came from Deputy Clare Daly. She stood up and said that what we need to do is to get the semi-State bodies to fund job creation. If it was as easy as that, why is that not being done currently? There are two reasons that is not being done. First, they cannot access and raise the funding and, second, if they go to the markets looking for funding, they need the support and funding of the State, which is not in a position to provide it. She then put forward the suggestion that the pension funds could provide the funding. However, she and others on that side of the House are the very people who argued and voted against the implementation of the pension levy, a levy which was designed to access funding from private pensions, some of the funding for which was enabled by pension tax reliefs from the State. The Deputy voted against this levy saying it was a raid on private pensions, but now she stands up and says that is what she wants to happen. That is incoherence. It is incoherence on a point that is too important and serious to deal with.

This was illustrated again by what Deputy Boyd Barrett said. He said we need to go down the Greek route and do what Greece is doing. Let us look at what is happening in Greece. It is on the verge of increasing its equivalent to VAT by three percentage points. Who will suffer most from that? It will be the very people the Deputy claims he wants to represent. Greece is on the verge of suspending 30,000 members of the public service. Is that the route the Deputy wants to take? Is that what he advocates as the right course for us? If it is, he should have the honesty to say so and to spell out the consequences.

The Government recognise two things. It recognises that the first thing we need to do is to reduce the total stock of debt with which the economy must deal. However, let us be clear about the rhetoric. It is being suggested here that the banks and the bailing out of the banks are what is driving this debt. Of course, that is an element of it, but the €15 billion deficit of this State, a gap we must close this year, has nothing to do with the cost of bailing out the banks. The banks are on top of that. Next year, when we get into dealing with our budget deficit, there will be a portion of the deficit that will be driven by bailing out the banks and we accept that. However, the majority of the deficit next year will be driven by the fact that there is an unsustainable gap between what we take in through taxation and what we spend.

The question remains, a question the Opposition has failed to even try to answer, of where the money will come from to fund job creation and ensure our debt is paid down. The Government recognises the tension and difficulty of doing this and is putting in place a process to reconcile the situation. At least, it is putting forward answers that are coherent. When we hear the same coming from the Opposition, we can then have a proper debate on the issue.

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