Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

This is the fifth budget in a row for the rich and powerful in our society. The USC package gives the top 5% of earners, 110,000 individuals earning over €180,000, an additional €922, costing the Exchequer almost €100 million or nearly twice what they were given last year. In contrast a low-paid worker on €18,000 gets a paltry €124 per year and someone on €25,000 gets a paltry €247 a year. An old age pensioner will get €3 a week or €156 a year, about one sixth of what a person on €180,000 is getting.

This so-called recovery is a recovery for the rich and powerful in this society. It is a recovery for the rich on the backs of low-paid and middle income earners and social welfare recipients. It again widens the gap between rich and poor. It is thoroughly unfair and shameful.

Worse still, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, told us that he will reduce the marginal tax rate for the very wealthiest in this society by 2 percentage points, giving them an effective bonanza, that is, if he is returned to office after the general election. He will reduce the marginal tax rate for these people from 52% to 50%, which is shameful. There is no wealth tax in the budget, even though the financial assets of the very wealthiest in the country are now €25 billion higher than they were at the height of the boom. It is a shameful sin of omission and one that must and should be reversed immediately.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, seems to have selective memory. He referred to various promises made during the course of the last general election campaign. However, he conveniently forgets the ones that referred to "Labour's way or Frankfurt's way". They planned to burn the bondholders, not another cent was to be given to the banks and we were to have a democratic revolution. He also forgot the six promises in the Labour Party's "Tesco" advertisement. I do not have time to go into them all this evening but each and every one of them was broken by the Labour Party and the Government, including the introduction of water charges; the introduction of local property tax; the increase in the rate of VAT; the increase in the rate of DIRT; and the reduction in child benefit which was absolutely shameful for the Labour Party, a party that claims to have the views of James Connolly.

On public service pensions, the Minister is retaining €95 million of the €125 million pension money lodged in the Exchequer but owned by public servants. Many of these people are on very modest pensions while we are giving huge money to the richest and most powerful in our society, who have absolutely no constitutional entitlement to it.

The demands of the Irish National Teachers Organisation and the educational community in general have again not been met in the budget. Obviously, any reduction in class sizes will be helpful but at 27:1, it is far too high and not good enough. There is no increase in the funding for capitation. I do not see any support for principals or the restoration of assistant principal posts and ex-quota guidance counsellors. No provision has been made for hours allowances for teaching principals to do administration work. These are absolutely essential if our young people are to get a good quality education.

The Minister, Deputy Brendan Howlin, seems to have conveniently forgotten the facts in the health area. We lost 11,000 staff and €4 billion during the course of the recession. They have not been restored.

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