Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The headline package in the Minister's budget is his income tax proposal. I have already mentioned that an individual earning €32,000 is better off to the tune of €174 per annum, before we even talk about water charges. In contrast, an individual earning €70,000 a year will benefit to the tune of €746 a year, which is four times greater.

Take the example of a couple on one income of less than €41,800 a year. They too will benefit by €174. That is an average couple, one of them working, the other staying at home to mind the kids, and the tax benefit the Minister is giving to them is €174 a year, which is more than wiped out by the water charges he is introducing. Let us be honest as to what this budget is really about. In contrast, for a two-income couple with both earning €70,000 a year, because the universal social charge is calculated on an individual basis, by combining the gain on USC, the expansion of the lower-rate band and the cut to the marginal rate of tax, they will be up by about €1,500 a year.

The Minister's tax proposals are very unfair, not just on low-income families but especially on families in which one parent decides to stay at home. He is not extending the low rate band by €2,000; he is extending it by just €1,000 for a couple, the same as for an individual. That is fundamentally unfair. I heard last night about an e-mail the Tánaiste sent to her Labour Party colleagues which stated that the budget would mainly benefit low- and middle-income earners, working families and vulnerable groups. We would not get that propaganda in North Korea. I honestly thought that Kim Jong-un had come out of exile to write an e-mail to the Labour Party. That is how misleading it was.

This Fine Gael-Labour Party Government has decided to fire the first shot today in its general election campaign and, in doing so, has proved it has learned nothing from the crisis we have just gone through. This is a budget straight from the book of old-school politics, a budget that is more about short-term political gain than what is right for the economy and our people. It is also a budget that exposes very clearly this Government's flawed priorities. At the first opportunity and the first sign of a recovery, the Government's priority is not to undo some of the social harm caused by six tough years of austerity-----

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