Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is aware that I have great personal regard for her as a person. The Minister has many fine qualities and I must state it was the qualities she possesses that attracted me into politics. There is no doubt but that she and I shared much in common with respect to political beliefs and values. Unfortunately, I will not be able to continue sharing that tonight, because I will express my lack of support for this Bill. I have few regrets in politics but none of them relate to my voting against the Social Welfare Bill last year; nor will I regret being obliged to vote against this Bill. The Bill before the House is undoubtedly an effective and terrible attack on those people who voted for the Labour Party in the last general election. I also regret being obliged to witness the Minister breaking her commitment to social justice and fairness because I know her to be a person who wakes up each morning with a view to protecting the vulnerable. It is a sad day when she is forced to do this by the Cabinet. It also is a bad day because I know the Minister to be a person who sets out in politics to bring in people from the periphery to the centre of society. It is a sad day when she is forced to do this. This sort of forced collusion in the budgets introduced both this year and last year is very difficult for people to accept and they feel a strong sense of betrayal with respect to the commitments that were given prior to the last general election in that regard. I do not believe the Minister is actively colluding in this. I have stated all along that she is being forced to do this. Clearly, however, there is an element of witnessing the Minister carry out the right-wing policies of Fine Gael in government and indeed those of the democratic centralists of her own political party. This sort of betrayal against the Minister's own values is difficult for the public to accept.

Last year, the Minister and her Cabinet colleagues sold the country and Parliament a pup. When the Government introduced a savagely regressive budget, Members were told it would introduce a catalogue of wealth taxes. However, Members now learn that those wealth taxes, drawn from the wealthiest in society, are simply failing and are not yielding revenue. This year alone, there is a shortfall of €130 million from the wealth taxes in Ireland. No such shortfall has been reported in respect of measures levied against low and middle-income families because they cannot escape to sunnier climes. Instead, the €130 million that has not been yielded from wealth taxes will be levied against working people through their pensions.

Moreover, the use of language in this budget has been extraordinary. Those aged under 26 have been told they have not suffered a cut but that it is simply a matter of extending the lower rate to them. This would be akin to me walking into the Minister's office and telling her I was not cutting her pay but was extending to her the pay of an usher. Is that a pay cut or not? Is that not a cut in core pay? The Minister cannot trumpet consistently in this Chamber that she has not attacked core elements of pay or social protection. At least the Minister, Deputy Noonan, has the good grace to accept that there have been cuts of such significance. However, the Minister, Deputy Burton, cannot laud the achievement of protecting core pay. It is undignified for her to so do in light of what has happened to young people. The Minister stretches the imagination in respect of the definition of what are the core elements of social protection. She must go and ask young and elderly people, as well as those with children, whether they believe their core social protections have been maintained, because they would quickly challenge her belief. She does her credibility great damage in that respect.

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