Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not have the kind of attitudes to women which the Deputy suggests. There are large numbers of women in the group that is going to have to come up with the €40 million. Many of those women are poor and they will be obliged to pay for this out of their family budgets. Choices must be made. In our wider family and in our circle of friends, we can all identify young pregnant women or young married women who plan to have children in the future which this may affect. We can identify with the individual and the personal. However, there are other women who are anonymous and frequently poorer than those in receipt of benefits and who must pay the relevant amount in tax. One can say that this is all right because only €40 million is involved. Such amounts all add up, however.

We continue to spend significantly more than we raise in taxes. The Government's job, among other things, is to reduce the gap between the two. A series of difficult choices must be made in order to get us there. Those choices involve increasing taxes, as in this case, or reducing expenditure, as in many others. They are difficult choices and we are engaged in making them. Deputy Boyd Barrett can disagree with what is proposed but if he does so, there is an obligation on him to inform me from where I might obtain the €40 million.

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