Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

There has been a lot of smoke and mirrors to try to deflect from the real meat of this budget. It is when we reach a proposal such as this that we see how completely retrograde and bankrupt this budget is. This is a make the poor poorer tax. There is no question about it. Loading this tax on things needed by people who have already been savaged with cuts and who barely have enough to keep going means they will buy less of them. That will make the poor poorer.

Along with everything else, there will be a lot more poorer people in this country. It makes a mockery of the suggestion that this budget is about jobs or that it is a priority of this Government to create jobs. This will result directly in the loss of jobs because the collapse in demand among low and middle income families is the reason small businesses throughout the country are hanging on for dear life. They cannot afford another hit and more businesses and small traders will go out of business and shed jobs.

Not only is it unjust, regressive and lead to job losses, it probably will not gain one penny for the Exchequer. That is the irony of it. It is likely that the Government will get nothing, or next to nothing, back from this because people will simply buy fewer goods and there will be no extra revenue for the State. It makes no sense.

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