Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is with a heavy heart that most of us who are opposed to the current austerity strategy practised by the Government in the past three years, which strategy is similar to that of the previous Government, read this Bill. It presented an opportunity to rectify the biggest errors made in the budget announcement last month. I refer also to the austerity measures included in previous finance legislation. The Government has refused to listen very clearly to the public's anger and is proceeding with the regressive Finance Bill based on a regressive budget.

Two weeks ago we watched the embarrassing spectacle of a fearful Government rushing through cuts affecting young and old people and the very vulnerable in a very harsh social welfare Bill. This week we debate the Finance Bill that makes more of the wrong choices on how the country should be proceeding. One month has almost passed since the announcement of the budget. In that time the Government should have noted the public's anger and changed track. Instead, it has ploughed ahead. Sinn Féin has produced a costed alternative to the budget that would have been fair, reduced the tax burden on ordinary families, protected jobs and public services and closed the deficit. This would have been achieved without damaging the domestic economy. Many groups working with the vulnerable and representing workers and the unemployed have proposed an alternative vision in addition to that of Sinn Féin. However, as the Government was not for turning, we are, therefore, debating another austere finance Bill clearly written to satisfy the troika, not the people.

I say we are debating the Bill, but, in reality, we are simply talking about it. A big problem every year when discussing the Finance Bill and other financial legislation is that Opposition Deputies are precluded from making meaningful amendments under the rules of the House and within constitutional restraints. Consequently, any attempt by my party to make real, substantial changes to the Bill that would help struggling families throughout the State will be ruled out of order. There has been much talk about political reform. The Government spoke about it and there has been considerable debate on the issue. However, the truth is that unless we address the problem whereby Opposition members cannot table meaningful amendments to any finance legislation, we will not really be tackling the issue properly and there will be a mock debate.

Sinn Féin is for positive engagement.

At a recent meeting of the finance committee, Sinn Féin was the only party that tabled amendments to the Credit Reporting Bill, some of which were accepted by Government, while others were accepted in principle. During the debate on the last Finance Bill we put forward amendments on real estate investment trusts, known as REITs, the contents of which were accepted by the Minister for Finance. However, we are limited in what we can do, and the Minister is well aware of that, because when he was on this side of the House he had the same shackles placed on him.

In recent months I drafted a Bill that would make Irish-registered non-resident companies tax-resident here if they did not prove tax residency anywhere else in the world. However, because of the rules, I am precluded from introducing that Bill in the Houses of the Oireachtas. The Bill was written and published four months ago and its contents appear in the Finance Bill today, which I welcome. I am surprised that the provision is here because when I tried to raise this issue at finance committee meetings I was heckled by members of the Minister's own party and shouted down by Deputy Dara Murphy in particular. I welcome the move on corporation tax and we will tease out the details at Committee Stage. I welcome it as a symbol that the attitude has shifted. In recent times, for better or worse, our corporation tax policy has come under the spotlight, but the response to this has been wrong. We cannot ignore the issue or spin our way out of it. Nobody defends Irish economic sovereignty more than Sinn Féin, but we cannot pretend that we have a transparent system when the Department cannot even say how many companies in Ireland are registered here but are not tax-resident here or anywhere else in the world. We had a farcical situation in which the sub-committee set up to examine the issue was afraid to call in the multinationals, and any time I tried to raise the contents of my Bill, now contained in the Finance Bill, I was heckled by some of the Minister's own party colleagues.

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