Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I know. It is pathetic. We are given no chance to speak in Parliament on behalf of the people who elected us on the day the budget is announced and now I am being shoehorned into a absurd timeslot of a little over four minutes. It is disgraceful. It is in the gift of the Taoiseach and his Government to say we will relax the rules a little for this important debate on the course the people will take for the next year.

Where is the imagination in the budget? Where is the courage? It is nowhere to be seen because proper stock has not been taken of the resources, incomes and wealth in this country in setting the scene for the plan for next year. It has been a failure of the Department of Finance and advisers not to point out that in the past 25 years the returns on wealth and capital have been steady every year, at 6% to 8% without fail. Where has there been even a timid effort made to ask corporate multinationals to pay their share for the services they enjoy in setting up here? The wealth of the 300 wealthiest people in the country has grown by €15 billion in one year. The 6% growth in GDP that the Government vaunts amounts to a figure of €10.8 billion, yet the Government states the taxation system is fair - not a bit of it.

David McWilliams has made a documentary in film form that is easy to follow by anybody who does not have the time or perhaps the ability to read the authoritative books recently produced by Joseph Stiglitz and Thomas Piketty such as The Price of Inequality. The price of inequality in Ireland is 38,000 households who are in deep distress and mortgage arrears and who should at least have the option of availing of a one-year bankruptcy term to become citizens who would no longer be imprisoned for the rest of their lives. They are at breaking point in terms of their health and even their very lives. It is disgraceful that such a Bill is not at the top of the list of legislation. David McWilliams correctly shows that the top 5% in terms of wealth own half of the wealth of the country and that the top 20% own 80% of it. The bottom 20% own only 0.26%. That is the reality. That is very different from what people think - they think the top 20% own 60%. The ideal, in a poll of 1,000 people, was that the top 20% should own about 30%. The Government has done nothing to address these realities. It is timid. We hear phrases such as "it is about decent jobs and fair wages", but people are seeking additional temporary work to pay for-----

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