Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

I am speaking on behalf of Deputy Dessie Ellis.

The Bill implements increases in motor vehicle tax and trade plate licences and, as the Minister said, provides for some technical changes. After 1 January, flat rate increases in the different tax bands for private vehicles were imposed. The increases range from 7.5% in bands D and G, the worst bands in terms of emissions, to much higher increases for low emission vehicles, with the A and B bands being increased by 54% and 44%, respectively. That will still leave band A at half the price for band C, but this increase cannot be wrapped in a cloak of environmental concern. It is purely a revenue raising measure, which the Minister should acknowledge.

Sinn Féin recognises the gap between revenue and spending in the State and the need to increase revenue through taxation. We are often accused of not understanding the need to close this gap which we understand must be closed. However, the measures being adopted by the Government are, frankly, an attempt to fool people into believing they are not being taxed unfairly. In fact, they are subject to many stealth taxes and charges which they must pay from their dwindling pay packets each week. Fine Gael, in particular, likes to describe itself as a low tax party, but I would describe it as a stealth tax party. These stealth taxes are strangling people who are struggling to keep their noses above water every day, week and month.

I have heard Ministers talk in this Chamber about the hard choices they must make in government. The ones who must make the really hard choices are those who must make a choice between purchasing a refill of heating oil and paying rent for a private house and between sending a child for further education and putting food on the table for the rest of their children. The hard choices are being made by families with children. They have to decide whether to stay here and be unemployed or emigrate. It is people like that, and not Ministers or politicians, who are making the hard choices. They are making those hard choices because of us.

The Government must recognise that the way to address the shortfall in revenue is to introduce real taxation reform. This is absent from all the piecemeal increases we see day and daily. The Government must begin to understand that we live in a woefully unequal society which takes a great proportion of income from low and middle income earners and provides fewer and fewer rights and entitlements to public services. Sinn Féin argued that the introduction of a wealth tax and a higher rate of income tax would go a long way towards raising the real funds needed for the running of the State and the provision of our services.

Another simple option which could be implemented in a Bill such as this would be the introduction of a higher tax rate for the, so called, luxury cars that are the preserve of those the Government is so unwilling to make pay their fair share in other taxation measures.

While the Bill will make it harder for ordinary folk to keep a car, several other Government measures are making it more difficult for them to avail of public transport, with cuts in public transport, closure of some services and fare increases on the remaining services. People are angry when they see how the money that is being taken from the people is being used. There are bonuses for super junior ministers, the Chief Whip and committee chairmen and junkets by committees, including that of the Joint Committee on the Environment, Transport, Culture and the Gaeltacht to oversee St. Patrick's Day festivities, never mind the billions in bondholder pay-offs, the money for NAMA developers and tax cuts for those earning between €75,000 and €300,000 a year. The people who are making those very hard and very real choices are angry because they see that the money being taken from them is not being invested properly.

The Bill has no strategy or vision for the future. It is simply a revenue raising operation targeted at people who cannot afford any more and who have already taken so much on the chin. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, said the income of ordinary people would not be touched by the budget. That was untrue. The Bill is a small example of that untruth. Ordinary people are adversely impacted by these increases.

This is particularly true in rural areas. The lack of rural transport infrastructure means that people are even more dependant on their vehicles. There have been cuts to rural transport schemes and rising fuel prices. The Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, must have been very good at division when he was at school. When he admonished those of us who opposed the household charge he said it was only €100 a year.

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