John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My overall view on the budget and what we read in the Finance (No. 2) Bill is that the budget has driven a huge wedge between Government and the citizen. It has built on past Government decisions and creates a divisiveness between the administrators of the country and the citizen. There is a deep inequality to which previous speakers have referred that is growing beyond any doubt and that makes people uneasy. That is reflected in their view of politics and politicians. One thing is said at election time and once it is over the commitments are quickly forgotten. In this case there has been very little reform or consideration of democracy or the people we represent. That is reflected in the Minister’s actions in government. It is also reflected by Deputy Mathews on the outside of the tent he once was inside. The Government’s intolerance of a different opinion has brought about the situation and a complete misunderstanding of the real problems that face people.

On one side of the budget balance sheet one has the supports the Government gives to those who are marginalised or sick and supports for education, business and local government. In that category the Minister has dealt a direct blow to the income of those who are less well off. They are less well off because of the budget and they are left confused as well because the spin from the Government is that the headline rates were not touched and people are still on the same amount of money or benefit of one kind or another.

The reality, however, is that the costs of living, paying for services and doing business have escalated. Therefore, there is far less disposable income in the economy. The Minister introduced the full property tax this year and there was consternation over its collection. With that tax, there will be a further erosion of disposable income. There will be considerable pressure on people in dealing with events in their lives, such as Christmas and the new year, while at the same time trying to keep on the right side of the law in respect of the payment of taxes. I am sure those affected will look on in absolute astonishment and disbelief regarding the fact that those who are better off actually do better. Reference was made to senior civil servants and the huge pensions of which they were and are in receipt. Nothing has been done in real terms to correct that. There is no comparison between the life of a pensioner on a State pension and those who collect their pensions from previous employment in the State. We have a duty of care to the less well-off. In this budget, that duty was absolutely ignored.

The other part of the balance sheet that is interesting is the screws turned on those who create the wealth and pay their taxes, including PAYE. They have been screwed also. Their ability to create wealth, pay taxes and share with the less well-off has been affected. The Government has not done anything to help these people. It promised to do things. In this regard, members of the Labour Party camped in a shop on Grafton Street, and the now Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, a former spokesman on justice, said that upward-only rent reviews would be dealt with. He said there would be no problem doing so on taking office. There is considerable correspondence in this regard on commitments given by Members of this House. However, the Government has run a mile from this issue and has not bothered to touch it. As a consequence, the shop used during the election campaign is now closed. In fact, the Government, which is a landlord and involved in upward-only rent reviews, was the reason businesses in other parts of the country went out of business, because it refused to renegotiate or even discuss the upward-only rent review clause. There is much correspondence to prove the point. The Government has let the people down and has not delivered. It did not fulfil and is not fulfilling the mandate given to it.

Another source of disbelief, which is evident every Thursday at meetings of the Committee of Public Accounts and which was evident to the Minister for Finance when he was chairman of that committee, is the scandalous waste that continues within the public sector. It must be seen to be believed. Every single Thursday, there is some systems failure flagged or some report on the loss of a huge sum of money, yet the suggestions made by the committee to plug the holes to try to prevent a recurrence are ignored. Furthermore, Ministers have refused to take them on board. Some of the suggestions made by Secretaries General of various Departments to the Minister for Finance were ignored. I refer to sensible suggestions such as the appointment of a qualified finance person. Yet we can give jobs to ten tip staff in the courts, while we cannot sanction a post in the medical profession. This was the case recently. The Government is creating inequality and divisiveness in society.

The Government has refused point-blank to assist the Committee of Public Accounts in examining local government. Only last week or thereabouts, the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said it was a good idea for the Committee of Public Accounts to examine local government. Who discovered all the shortcomings in local government and the millions of euro that were wasted? It was the Comptroller and Auditor General in his report to the Committee of Public Accounts. When did the Minister last see or hear a debate conducted by the auditors of local government on the expenditure of local government? I have not heard one. The Minister still runs with the vested interests within the State to ensure there is no such debate. Where is his promised reform package and why has he not implemented any real reform in the administration of the State since he came into power? It does not exist and the Minister has no intention of introducing it. He should tell the public that.

By proceeding as the Government has done, it is forcing those who are making money and paying their taxes to pay into a system that is leaking heavily on the other side through waste and inefficiencies. The Minister simply ignores this, which is absolutely appalling.

The SME sector, which creates the wealth and jobs, is being penalised at every turn. I understand the 9% VAT rate has helped but the Government has failed to deal with the cost of drink in a meaningful way. The Minister's contribution to the small builders' sector was to introduce a scheme that would assist only the better-off. Those who need extensions will not get them as they do not have the money to spend in the first instance. The Minister has not given the money for the construction programme that local councils might encourage through the grant system for those who need a house to be refurbished because of age or disability. The Minister has reneged on that as well.

What has the Minister done with the banks? He flagged the fee he is to charge them. He said it is new and that he is going after the big banks. So much for his spin, because he gave the banks the mechanism to adjust their taxes because of their losses. They will have the money well back from the State by the time they get to cooking the books for tax consideration and so on. This is similar to what Deputy Mathews was saying. The citizen must pay up because of the problems that exist and the Government tells him that the money can be taken from his pocket, while those who are better off, including corporations and large businesses, have been let off, by and large. It was not decided that for three years, for example, they would have to pay a little more tax, which could possibly be considered as an aspect of corporate social responsibility. The Minister did not even investigate this option. There is nothing new, only the same old story from the civil servants to the Minister. There is nothing imaginative in the budget and nothing that would show the citizen that there is real change in politics and a real belief that we can balance the books in a more equitable way without depriving people of the income they once had through their benefits, etc.

Consider the trouble the State is in with regard to pensions. Every single week we check the pension circumstances of a certain agency or Department and find there is a massive deficit. What will the Government do about that? Not a single word has been said about it. The Government promised gold-plated health cover. What a spin he put on it.

They will not be able to continue to pay their private health insurance premiums. They are walking away from private health insurance because they cannot afford it. They are going to put themselves into the public system, a system with trolleys in corridors, queues for hip replacements, knee replacements, cataract operations and so forth. If one attends any accident and emergency department or any hospital, one will see queues everywhere, yet what the Minister has decided to do is to drive more people further in that direction. He has decided not to assist them but to make them join public waiting lists. Life is short and people deserve a good quality of life. They deserve a Government that cares for them and ensures they receive the quality of care they deserve, require and must have.

In an underhanded way, the Government stated there would be a random check on medical cards. That was another spin. I have never seen so many elderly people in my clinics, unable to complete their forms in this random examination of their medical cards and circumstances. They are frightened in their own homes. They turn off the electricity early; they do not use their oil and they are forced to ask the supplementary welfare officer for support for once-off expenses. They are fearful in their homes and the Government has done nothing to remove their fear. It has done nothing to give comfort to elderly people who have contributed to the State. That does not just go for my constituency but for every constituency in the country. The Minister's own backbenchers will tell him that this is the situation, but the Government ignores it. It has made no decision that will help them. It is disgraceful that elderly people should, at this time in their lives, have to complete these forms and suffer delays in being considered for a medical card. In some cases, when elderly citizens went to their local chemist to collect their medication, they were told that their medical cards had been withdrawn. Nothing is being done about this. Does the Government think that is okay?

There has been much talk about the retail sector and the banks. The retail sector is on its knees, but the Minister does not seem to understand this. There is nothing in the Finance Bill that will assist retailers. Those companies involved with Enterprise Ireland receive assistance, as do those connected with the local enterprise boards, but the retail sector is struggling because of the lack of disposable income. Furthermore, the fears people have about the economy and their future means that they are not spending whatever money they do have. The Minister has done nothing to encourage them to spend or build up their confidence. Nothing in what he has done has shown them that he is interested in them.

There are 100,000 people on social housing waiting lists, while 3,500 social housing units are boarded up. What about the loss of income to the State? Why are these homes not being rented out? Why are the local authorities not collecting rent on one side and meeting a social need on the other? The Government seems to be incapable of pressing the money down through the system and getting a response. It also seems to be willing to see those who are marginalised screwed even more, their quality of life diminished and their ability to deal with their financial affairs, health and other areas also diminished. They are simply cast to one side without any consideration. That is reflected in the decision on the tax credit for separated parents. There is still time to row back on this decision, to change it and give people the opportunity to restructure their finances within their own homes and come to certain arrangements, if they are separated. The Minister considered none of this. He just made the cut and walked away from it, deciding to let the people bear the brunt of it. That is unforgivable of any Government.

If anyone wants a clear indication of what the Government thinks of the people, he or she need only look at the extensive powers given to the Revenue Commissioners to collect money. I never thought I would see the day when a Government would give permission to the Revenue Commissioners to dip their hands into people's pockets and take their money. They can now tap into the payments of social welfare recipients. The Government has succeeded in putting the fear of God into people regarding the Revenue Commissioners and the collection of debt. I know we need money, but if the Government was to address the issue of waste in the State with the same degree of commitment with which it has pursued the citizen who has nothing, it would be doing a far better job. It would have less taxes to collect and might have happier citizens who would see the country being run properly, with taxes being collected and spent properly. It would also see the less well-off and the marginalised being better looked after. However, the Minister is moving in the opposite direction, which is frightening, particularly when one considers that members of the Labour Party sit beside him. I thought that they might have put some balance into his views, but that has not been the case.

I ask the Minister to examine the amendments tabled and carefully consider what was said by those who have put some thought into their contributions to the Second Stage debate. Nobody in this House has all of the answers, but the Minister might get a little answer from here and there and might turn the policies in a direction that would suit an awful lot more of those who are less well off. I ask him to consider whether the Revenue Commissioners could be a little more compassionate in how they view things. We have created a system, regardless of whether we like it, that during the years has washed out any compassion or humanity in how we govern the country. That is not acceptable. People expected that there would be a turn-about in terms of that aspect of governance because of the promises made about reform during the last general election campaign. I hope this Bill will focus the Minister's attention on the various problems Deputies in their constituencies are seeing at first hand. I am sure the Minister is seeing them in his constituency. I would love to see that reform reflected in each and every Bill brought before this House, particularly those that affect the quality of life of the people we represent.

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