Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

This Finance Bill continues the programme of austerity the Government has embraced since it came to power, having promised and committed otherwise during the general election campaign. It targets low and middle-income families, is deeply unjust and regressive and deepens the divide in Irish society. It is important to remember what this austerity means in practice. I have to hand recent figures, which are not mine but come from the Central Statistics Office, stating that 7% of the population now lives in consistent poverty, which is up from 4.2% in 2008. It tells one that in the third year-on-year increase, 733,000 people, or 16% or the population, are at risk of poverty. It tells us that 90,000 children live in consistent poverty and 230,000 children live in relative poverty at a time when a so-called Minister for Social Protection has cut child benefit and has recently instructed community welfare officers nationwide not to pay any grants to needy families who might need a few bob for their children's communions or confirmations. This is what austerity means. It means there are 180,000 people in mortgage distress and that 430,000 people are on the live register, more than 50% of whom are long-term unemployed. Moreover, that figure of course would be much larger but for the 250 people per day who emigrate.

Austerity also means the Finance Bill does not contain a single provision that creates employment. Figures have been thrown out recently by various Ministers suggesting jobs have been created. However, independent assessment by the Central Statistics Office has demonstrated repeatedly that there has been a net reduction in jobs in the economy since the Government came to power. This is a Government of jobs destruction, not of job creation. The figures are clear that at the end of last year, there were fewer people at work in the economy than was the case a year previously. The numbers employed have fallen from 1.845 million in 2011 to 1.841 million in 2012.

This Bill is predicated on a reduction in employment in 2012, which happened, and stagnation of employment in 2013 but, unfortunately, it looks like it will be worse than stagnation because to tackle the unemployment problem, the Government needs to create jobs and not only the environment to create jobs. The Government needs to engage in job creation because private enterprise has failed and companies have been on an investment strike for the past number of years.

We are repeatedly told that there is no choice, but there are clear choices. The Minister for Finance recently informed the House by way of reply to a parliamentary question that the top 10,000 earners in the State had a total annual income of €5.95 billion, an average of €595,000 each. He also said that the top 1% of income earners or 21,650 high earners, had a gross annual income of €8.742 billion, an average of €403,760 each per annum. These people are not being targeted or being asked for one additional cent in this Bill. None of them probably works in the public sector and the Taoiseach is not even included in that figure. The Government does not propose in the legislation to target additional revenue from these people. We could easily, without causing difficulty for them, generate €1 billion in additional taxation from them. The Government parties propose to extract €1 billion from public servants over the next three years, the vast majority of whom earn close to the average industrial wage but they will not touch people who have incomes of €595,000 or €403,000 per annum. This is a Government which supports the wealthy and powerful in this society similar to the old buddy system where a small minority of people are in a golden circle.

The CSO also points out that the figure for net personal assets, which does not include business assets, farms or homes, is higher than it was in 2007, having increased from €111.675 billion to €120 billion in 2011. In addition, wealthy people have increased their income and assets during the recession. For instance, a recent report by Nick Webb in a Sunday newspaper highlighted that the 300 wealthiest people in the State increased the value of their assets by €12 billion in 2010 and 2011. Wealthy people have made money during the recession while the vast majority of people lost income. They have significantly increased their assets but they are not being asked to pay their fair share. The Government has choices but it has chosen to target lower and middle income families with cutbacks and increased taxation and it is allowing wealthy people with significant income and assets, which have increased during the recession, to get off scot free. James Connolly would turn in his grave. In a year that is the centenary of the 1913 Lockout, that is a sad reflection on the Labour Party.

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