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

Like everyone else, I desperately want to see a recovery. However, a recovery is more than GDP statistics or marginal reductions in the live register. That is the point that the Government is missing. If it is to mean anything at all, a real recovery must mean that people's lives improve, that the financial and emotional burden of the recession is lifted and that tomorrow will be better than today. Of course, for some there has been a recovery. However, the majority of families are being left behind. Fine Gael's and the Labour Party's recovery is one for the few, not the many. When the detail of what has been announced today sinks in, there is no doubt that hundreds of thousands of people across the State will be bitterly disappointed. For hard-pressed families struggling to pay property tax and water charges, 2015 will not be the end of austerity. Today’s budget does little or nothing for these families. Some of them will be actually worse off as a result of it.

We must never forget why all of this is the case. This year, servicing the State's debt burden will cost the taxpayer just under €8 billion. How much of this is due to the Government's failure to deliver on the promise of a deal on banking debt? What will be the cost of the Government's failure to secure the separation of banking debt and sovereign debt, as promised at the June 2012 European Council meeting?

The single biggest challenge facing the economy is the lack of private and public sector investment. This is why so many people continue to be either unemployed or under-employed. It is also the reason so many people continue to emigrate. I am sure the Taoiseach remembers his party's famous five-point plan which was brought forward in 2011 and in which it was promised that €5 billion would be invested during the lifetime of the Government in order to get people back to work. The Labour Party also promised that €1 billion would be invested from the strategic investment fund. In budget after budget, however, the Government has failed to live up to these promises. The reason the rate of job creation is so painfully slow is that the Government is failing to invest in the economy. Sinn Féin has consistently argued for a real State-led stimulus. Time after time we have produced costed job creation proposals. At first the Government dismissed our plans; now it has embraced some of them, but without the necessary ambition or speed of reaction that the employment crisis demands.

One of the most important choices the Government faced in advance of today's budget was whether to tax the wealthy or lift the burden from the low and middle earners. It has presented its changes to the marginal rate of tax, to the threshold at which people enter the marginal rate and to USC rates as helping struggling families. The truth is rather different. When taken together and in conjunction with the impact of property tax and water charges, these combined changes will mean that those who earn the average industrial wage will be worse off. Their impact on middle-income families will be neutral. Once again, however, those who earn high incomes will benefit significantly. A low paid worker on €30,000 will gain €174, which is less than the lowest possible water charge bill of €176. A middle income earner on €50,000 will gain €546, all of which will be wiped out by water charges and the full cost of property tax. A high income earner on €70,000 will, however, gain €746. Those in this category will be the only ones who gain any real benefit from the Government's tax changes. Where is the help for low- and middle-income families in these changes? When the Taoiseach was sitting at the Cabinet table this morning, did he not blush when the Minister for Finance informed him that he would be €657 better off as a result of the budget? The Taoiseach earns €183,000 per year and the Minister informed him that he would receive a tax cut of €657. Did he not blush when the Minister indicated that a married couple with an income of €35,000 would receive a tax cut amounting to one quarter of that? This is the type of fairness the Government has visited upon people in the past four years.

Níl aon iontas orm go dtiocfadh páirtí ar nós Fine Gael - an páirtí pribhléideach seasta - ar chinneadh cosúil leis seo, ach is ábhar iontais é do go leor duine go bhfuil tacaíocht Pháirtí an Lucht Oibre ag an Rialtas fá choinne seo. Ní chruthófar postanna le laghdúchán de 1% ar an ráta imeallach cánach. Ní chabhróidh sé seo le tromlach na ndaoine atá faoi phionós mar gheall ar na polasaithe déine atá tugtha isteach ag an Rialtas seo.

At a time when children are being forced to sleep in cars, tents or hotel beds, or on the floors of relatives' homes, because of the lack of investment in housing, it is criminal for the Government to cut the top rate of tax. Fr. Peter McVerry was right to express outrage at this proposal and say that he was "dismayed" by it. I am talking about what Fine Gael and the Labour Party are doing here today.

Sinn Féin welcomes the closure of loopholes that allow multinational companies to reduce their tax liabilities. When we called for an end to the "double Irish" tax arrangement, the Minister for Finance said that the only problem with this loophole was that it contained the word "Irish" in its name. He went on to say that it was an American construction and indicated that there was nothing in the tax code which would allow the Irish State to close it down. The Minister said all of this in response to questions I asked, and I am of the view that he misled the Dáil. There can be no ifs or buts about it, particularly as he stated earlier that he was closing down the "double Irish" loophole. We welcome this belated development.

The real tragedy in respect of today's budget is the failure to abolish property tax and water charges. Fine Gael and the Labour Party continue to overtax ordinary families. A fairer budget would have shifted the burden of taxation onto revenue sources less harmful to the domestic economy and ensured finance for investment in front-line services. Abolishing property tax, which is a deeply unfair charge, would act as a massive stimulus for low- and middle-income families. What would the abolition of this tax mean?

For the 1.8 million homeowners affected, it would mean €278, on average, back into their pockets. Scrapping the introduction of water charges would have an even greater effect on the average family bill, which will be well in excess of the average touted by the Government. The Government's proposal to provide working people with a €100 tax credit to offset the cost of water charges in no way meets the demand or compensates for the impact on hard-pressed families. Worse, as mentioned earlier, up to 880,000 working people have no tax liability and therefore will be in no position to avail of the tax credit, although it will be available to higher income earners. The reason they have no tax liability is that they earn so little. These are the very people who will be worst affected by this charge. Let us be clear: Sinn Féin has committed to the total abolition of these unjust charges because they are hurting families and the domestic economy. That is why we have said that, if elected to Government, we will scrap them.

One of the most damaging consequences of the successive austerity budgets of the Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour Party Governments has been the dismantling of our public health system. I am pleased the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy James Reilly, is in attendance. Perhaps he has found the €500 million hole in the heath budget from last year.

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