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

-----but instead to design tax cuts that disproportionately put far more money in the pockets of higher income earners. That speaks volumes about where this Government's priorities lie.

We all know the Government's first three budgets were deeply regressive, hitting low- and middle-income families the hardest and letting off the highest income earners in the country virtually scot free. When the Government cut the respite care grant, cut supports for special needs children and abolished the telephone allowance, no corresponding sacrifice was required by those who had the most. The Government is now borrowing money to give a tax cut which will give by far and away the greatest benefit to the better off and which everyone else will have to repay with interest. That is what is happening.

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