Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

I propose to share time with Deputies Catherine Murphy and Maureen O'Sullivan. These cuts in the Department of Social Protection are the meanest, cruelest, sneakiest and most unnecessary cuts this Chamber has seen. It has shocked people in the communities that a Labour Party Member is implementing these measures with so-called reluctance. In the last week of the election campaign, the Labour Party appealed to voters not to allow Fine Gael into government on its own. There was a clear indication that Fine Gael in government on its own would put the boot into working and poor people. If this is the Labour Party protecting the poor and working people, it is more akin to the outcome of the pigs in Animal Farm when they came to power and implemented the austerity they had previously overturned.

The Minister has not abandoned these people but has targeted them. She has certainly spread the pain across every vulnerable sector in society including the unemployed, carers, people with disabilities, pensioners, widows, part-time workers, community schemes, people who depend on mortgage interest relief because they lost their job, people forced into private accommodation who are in receipt of rent supplement, the 93,000 people on the housing list, those in receipt of fuel allowance, lone parents, women and children. What part of the poor and the vulnerable have escaped this assault on the already low living standards? The Minister's proposals could aptly be described as death by 1,000 cuts.

The Minister claimed not to have cut the basic rate but this is a false claim. The Department of Finance estimates that in 2012, inflation will rise by 2.5% on top of the VAT of 2%. If income remains the same and inflation increases, it is an effective cut. Electricity bills, gas bills and other fuel bills have already increased by 12% to October of this year. Having the same basic allowance and facing these increases is hardly being protected.

I am glad to see that the Government has responded to the anger at the unbelievable attempts to slash the disability benefit for young people between 18 and 24 years of age. This was a cruel, vicious and offensive cut that should never have seen the light of day in a budget. We have heard a variety of excuses from Ministers, starting with the unbelievable and nonsensical claim that it came from families with disabled children because it caused children to be wayward. This was stated by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, on "Prime Time" on Monday night. Different words were used, but it is the same thing as saying that people forced on to jobseeker's benefit made a lifestyle choice. This has now moved to the unbelievable guff that this is all the fault of the IMF. Not only was this cut to disability allowances cruel, unnecessary and mean, so are all the cuts being proposed in this Bill.

The savings of €475 million could easily have been achieved by taxing those on large incomes. One simple way to raise money to close the deficit is to make a marginal rate of tax for people on higher incomes an effective tax rate. It is claimed that the marginal rate is 52% but individuals earning more than €100,000 only paid 31.4% in effective tax. More recent figures from the Revenue Commissioners show that the highest paid 10,000 earners, who make up 0.5% of all earners, earned €6 billion or 7.3% of all income in 2009. That is an average of €563,000 per year and only 29% of their income was taken in tax. A simple way to make marginal rates effective is to increase the 30% effective tax rate progressively on incomes of more than €100,000. This would provide the Government with enough revenue to avoid these cuts in the budget and to reverse the cuts since 2008.

If the Minister was really serious about being fair, spreading the burden equally and protecting the most vulnerable, these are the measures the Labour Party would advocate and implement. This budget is a continuation of the policy of previous Governments made up of Fianna Fáil, the Green Party and the Progressive Democrats of recession proof budgets for the wealthy on the backs of the poor and those who can ill afford to take any more cuts. Reducing spending on social protection to 2008 levels by 2013 is the Minister's target. This is a 14%-15% cut despite the rise in unemployment and despite the rise in people depending more and more on social protection. This can only be achieved through savage cuts in social protection. This will completely reverse the limited progress made between 2000 and 2007. I will oppose every amendment the Minister will put before us, not just in today's or tomorrow's votes in this talking shop, but in the future.

The Minister will know many of the CDPs have been running a "Book of Grievances and Hope" campaign in their communities; many of the Labour Party Ministers and Deputies will know of this campaign. The idea comes from the lists of grievances during the time of the French Revolution, where people put their grievances into a book to show how the wealthy in France were beating them down. This is a Christmas book of grievances from Kilbarrack CDP after school children's project and I said to some of the children when they visited on Tuesday that we would read their contributions into the record. "Please Santa, can you afford me this year?" wrote Jody, age 8. "My mam and dad cannot afford to buy me new winter clothes" wrote Emma Grey, age 11. "We cannot afford to write a Santa letter, my mam lost her job as an SNA", says Lauren Carroll, age 12. Among the other grievances are, "Christmas will not be the same for children, do you know what sharing means Minister?", "Governments are making it hard on parents with big families", they knew the cut for third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh children was coming down the line, "You do not know how many lives you are ruining", "Please do not shut our club", "Dad has no money", and there are many more. I wanted to read them into the record because it is important these children who are feeling the brunt of the cuts have it registered in the House.

The United Left Alliance today in its fight back commits itself to supporting all community groups, lone parents, pensioners, widowers and anyone affected by these offensive cuts. There will be a fight back; those who have been hit by these cuts are very angry, their expectations have been battered by the cuts and it is through people power and solidarity that they will come out on to the streets to let this Labour-Fine Gael Government know these cuts are not necessary. It is another recession-proof budget for the wealthy on the backs of the poor and the most vulnerable. As the last speaker said, shame on the Minister and all Government Members.

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