Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important Bill, which will affect virtually every home in the State. This legislation will give legal effect to many of the budget 2012 proposals and provides the detail of these and many other proposals. The devil, as always, is in the detail. Many families are only now starting to feel the effects of the first tranche of budget 2012 cutbacks. Letters are starting to arrive in the post and the pain is becoming more apparent. People are devastated and on their knees. Having experienced one cut after another, they do not have any more to give.

We all agree that in the run up to the budget many people were concerned and anxious about what was coming down the tracks. They were nervous about what the budget might hold for them and their families. Newspapers were full of leaks which, according to journalists, emanated from Ministers and their advisers. People were scared for many reasons, with most of them concerned about how they would pay the bills. Many people were also frightened about their jobs, while the few who had something to spare in the bank were concerned that the euro would fail.

Ministers assured anyone who wanted to listen that this would be a reforming budget, with one Minister suggesting it would not be as bad as we thought and we should consider taking a holiday. Words and phrases such as "adjustments", "austerity", "painful process", "fiscal adjustment", "consolidation", "sharing the burden" and "heavy lifting" punctuated the rhetoric. When we hear the word "reform" it usually brings to mind efforts to improve or enhance what currently exists or perhaps to abolish a wrong or bring about change. I do not see evidence of any of these scenarios in the budget. To describe the budget or Finance Bill as "reforming" is wrong as they represent more of the same failed politics and policies.

In his television address to the nation the Taoiseach stated the budget, which I presume he had seen, would seek to look after the most vulnerable. Given that the cuts announced in it are being imposed on school children, the elderly, lone parents, young people and those with a disability, I do not know on what his statement was based. If there is any guilt, it is that the Government is guilty of implementing the same ill-thought out, regressive policies as its predecessors. This is not what people voted for when they voted for change in the belief that there would be a difference. People are still scared. They are adding up the figures and wondering what they can cut back in their shopping baskets. They are facing new bills and realising the true effects of the Government's plan.

The decisions implemented in the Finance Bill will undermine the rights of children and young people to access a fair standard of education. It is a Minister of the Labour Party who will oversee the implementation of these cuts. We have seen a complete U-turn on pre-election promises.

The most outrageous proposal in the Bill is the special assignee relief programme, which allows companies to bring in highly paid individuals from outside the State and have their tax liability on earnings of between €75,000 and €500,000 written off by 30%. Over the five years of the period the benefit will be allowed, the individuals concerned will earn up to €635,000 tax free. All this has been done without introducing the slightest obligation to create a single job.

Despite its claims on job creation, the Government has sadly settled upon what it believes to be acceptable levels of poverty, unemployment and emigration. The evidence is its statement that 400,000 people will be unemployed in 2015. The Government claims it will be able to create 100,000 jobs in the interim. However, based on the figures it has provided, the net decrease will be brought about by emigration. It is a shocking indictment that any Government would accept this level of unemployment, poverty and emigration. While the figures may be acceptable to well insulated Ministers, they are not acceptable to people, businesses or the economy.

To add insult to injury, the Minister for Finance tells us the market is flexible and 125,000 people have come off the live register. The inconvenient truth is that under this Government the level of long-term unemployment has grown. The implementation of the Finance Bill will undoubtedly deliver a body blow to the 450,000 people who are unemployed and the 76,000 people who will emigrate this year.

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