Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We were told there would be no increase in income tax. What have I just calculated? That is an increase in income tax. It is not in the headline rate of 41% or USC, but it is income tax. It must be paid out of income and, therefore, it is a tax on income, or else one does not have medical insurance. That is the truth about that.

I was asked what happened here today and I said, "It is a soggy type of budget." It is like when one has a cardboard box that gets soggy in the rain. It was predictable that the Department of Finance, in its two divisions, would hang its arguments, and do its calculations, on the old frameworks. That is exactly what has happened. There has been no imagination. What about a betting tax? The turnover of the betting sector, online, etc., which wreaks havoc in families, is considerable - €2 billion or €3 billion. If one put 5% tax on that, one would get €100 million.

This brings me to the other areas of raising revenues to make society fair and stop the inequality. On inequality, by the way, I will not go over the figures again but they are there if one is honest. In the United States, a neoliberal society, the top 1% of income and wealth of society increased that income and wealth by 30% since Christmas 2008 while the income and wealth of the bottom 40% was shrunk by 6%, and the same is happening in this country.

It brings me quickly to foreign direct investment in the Minister, Deputy Noonan's, section today.

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