Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy will have his chance. He should read the Central Bank report which shows that the financial assets of some people in this society have grown considerably. We know that people who have lost their jobs do not have those assets; we know that public sector workers who lost 20% of their pay do not have that; we know that young people do not have it; we know it has not gone into our public services. Therefore, who has this money? It is an extra €16 billion, according to the Central Bank. The very wealthy have it. One need only see the rents going up all over the city. The developers and property owners who are still standing are buying up all the property at cheap prices and rents are going through the roof. They are making money out of other people's misery. Profits have increased virtually every year except for 2008, particularly for the big corporations, and yet the Government refuses to force them to pay a little bit of extra tax. In the questions I put to the Department of Finance prior to the budget I asked what would happen if we imposed a reasonably substantial increase in income taxes on those earning over €100,000 a year, with three new bands of €100,000, €150,000 and €200,000. The Department's reply was that it would yield €1.1 billion. Would it have been better to hit people earning over €100,000 a year with €1.1 billion of extra tax rather than to hammer the old, the sick, the young and the vulnerable? Of course it would. There are alternatives. Let us nail that lie and ask the Government why it chooses to protect the rich over the poor.

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