Dáil debates

Wednesday, 7 December 2011

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed)

 

5:00 pm

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

During the course of the general election we were told time and again, particularly by the Labour Party but also by Fine Gael, that the vulnerable would be protected by the Government. However, this budget gives the lie to this. It is a vicious assault on the elderly, the sick, the disabled and middle and low income families. It is a massive reneging on promises made during the general election. The Government is pursuing the very same failed policies of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party and is making middle and low income families and the poor pay for a recession they had no hand, act or part in creating. The Taoiseach stated recently during his television address that they were not responsible for this recession. However, he did not tell them they would still have to pay for it. Austerity is not working. It is driving down domestic demand as well as creating mass unemployment, high welfare costs and low tax revenues. That is being done to pay borrowed moneys to bondholders and speculators, and make interest payments. The wealthy are being protected while working people and the poor are being made to suffer. That is based on a policy that is deepening the recession and making the economic crisis worse.

The Government claims it has no alternative to this, but there are choices. The super-rich are being protected while those on low and middle-incomes, and the poor, are being made to pay for this recession. There are choices. The Government could have chosen to tax the super-rich but chose not to. It chose to allow a golden circle - the top 5% of super-wealthy cronies - to get off scot free. There will not an additional cent of taxation from this very wealthy section of society.

I put on record the proposal I and members of the United Left Alliance made concerning a wealth and assets tax. We believe €10 billion could be collected from the top 5% of the very rich - people who have €219 billion of personal assets. Even if taxed to the tune of €10 billion, they would still be among the super-rich and have in excess of €200 billion of assets. This wealth tax is practical, workable and, above all, fair. It would make very wealthy people pay their fair share of taxation.

Ireland is not a poor country. There is huge wealth but it is distributed badly and in favour of wealthy people. I will cite figures which are not mine or those of any partisan, political party, organisation, group of individual. They are independent figures from our Central Statistics Office, which is a Government service, and the Revenue Commissioners. They are bang up to date from the end of 2010 and have only been recently published. According to the CSO figures, the earnings of the richest 20% in this country have risen from 4.3 to 5.5 times those of the lowest 20%. That is unprecedented in recent decades. There is a huge growing gap between rich and poor.

The CSO also tells us that financial assets in 2009 and 2010 have increased by €45 billion. Credit Suisse's global wealth report, published last month, states that the top 1% of super-rich in Ireland have assets of €131.5 billion. That report also says that the top 10% of super-rich in Ireland have assets of €219.3 billion. Yet not a cent in tax has been taken from them in this budget. These are personal assets, not business ones.

In proposing this wealth and assets tax we are not talking about ordinary people whose life savings are invested in the local credit union, bank or any other financial institution. Neither are talking about someone with a lump sum from a redundancy or retirement package. We are not talking about those who may have bought a house, or even two houses, to provide for their family in retirement. We are talking about people who own apartment blocks, shopping centres, yachts and helicopters. Even if €10 billion in tax was taken from these super-rich people, they would still be super-rich with assets of more than €200 billion. We will exempt those with incomes of less than €100,000. Therefore the tax would only apply to people earning more than €100,000 and with assets in excess of €1 million. It would exclude the family home and family farm.

This tax has been, and is being, operated in other European countries, such as Norway, Switzerland and France. Fine Gael introduced such a measure in the 1970 budget via the then Minister for Finance, Mr. Richie Ryan. It was subsequently abolished by the people in Fianna Fáil who are not even here to listen this evening.

This a real choice which will bring fairness to the taxation system and make money to create jobs, thus attacking the recession and putting people back to work.

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