Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

They make a desert and call it peace, so said Calgacus, allegedly, surveying the destruction wrought by the Roman Empire. The Government has created a deeply unequal society. It has created a society where homelessness is rife and where low pay is dominant and they have called it a recovery. The budget is designed to give the impression that something is being given back; that it is a give-away budget from the point of view of ordinary people when in fact it provides at most spare change instead of real change for the majority in the State. It continues with the same regressive policies that benefit the high earners, the corporations and the rich. It is a Fine Gael budget and it is likely to be considered a fifth regressive budget, following four others which despite the protestations of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, are responsible for the deepening inequality we have.

Let us look at the average worker who will get back €5 a week in their pay packet. That will go, if he or she were to pay the water charges, which the average worker will not; or if he or she were to pay the property tax, but also if he or she were to pay the spiralling rents. The average worker got an increase of just over 1%, compared to the worker on €70,000, in the top 7% of income earners in this State, who will gain 2% or €17 a week.

Let us look at the benefits for the rich: corporation tax, capital acquisitions tax, capital gains tax and the knowledge development box linked to the corporation tax. Who is not for knowledge development? It sounds like a good idea. I can imagine people being in favour of that, but let us examine what is actually going on with the knowledge development box. The pamphlet by PricewaterhouseCoopers states, “Is it time for your country to consider the 'patent box'?” Perhaps the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michel Noonan, read the pamphlet. It has the telling observation on page 4: “Countries without a patent box regime generally have higher effective tax rates which may make it difficult to adopt the patent box.” The purpose of the patent box, repackaged now as a knowledge development box, is to reduce further effective rates of corporation tax in the State, which are already a lot lower than 12.5%. It is part of a game of tax competition in which the Government is engaged. It likes to present the people as being beneficiaries of this, when the only ones to benefit are the multinational corporations. They win from the game in which the Government is involved. That is highlighted above all by the incredible sight of the Government going to war to say to Apple and the European Commission that we do not want €17 billion in back taxes to be paid to the Irish State. We do not want this large portion of our budget to be paid back in tax that is owed. That is the Government’s patriotic approach to the use of corporation tax, the patent box and other such issues.

I draw attention to a line in the speech of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, "Social Protection Howlin", where he said: “I am providing €13.2 billion for the delivery of health services next year. I am happy to say, this restores the resourcing of our health services to its pre-crisis level.” That is just inaccurate. One can dice it whatever way one wants, total figures, GDP or population, but it is inaccurate. In 2008 health spending was more than €16 billion. We are €3 billion lower-----

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