Joe O'Reilly (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The conclusion can only be that we have a very deep-rooted democracy, with fundamental solidarity among citizens.

The Government of the day managed the issue in a very fair and reasonable way and I suspect that great tribute will also have to be paid to our public servants and trade unionists, who put the good of the society and the country, along with potential job creation, ahead of their immediate self-interest. That was illustrated in the number of agreements made with the trade union movement in this period, culminating in the Lansdowne Road agreement. The public servants who exercised such restraint and the workers who maintained social solidarity in our country are true patriots who should be celebrated in this country. All of these people should be remembered and held up as heroes for what they did. As we rebuild a proper and normal society in reconstructing the country, it is important that they feel the benefits and get recognition for the sacrifices they made.

The Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill 2015 is an attempt to start that process, effectively implementing the terms of the Lansdowne Road agreement, which was a very patriotic, selfless agreement on the part of the public service workers who were inspired by a Government that knew what it was about. The legislation involves partial and phased restoration of cuts to public servant salaries and pensions put in place between 2009 and 2013. As I stated, the legislation arises from the Lansdowne Road agreement, which recognised the contribution of public servants and gave expression to their contribution to the recovery. It was accepted by the majority of unions. Part 2 of the Bill proposes the partial and phased restoration of public servants' remuneration. It is well laid out but I will make reference to the text because there were attempts to misconstrue how this will operate.

A salary of up to €24,000 will see an increase of 2.5%, with effect from 1 January 2016, or immediately, one could say. A salary of between €24,000 and €31,000 will see an increase of 1% on 1 January 2016, with a salary of up to €65,000 seeing an increase of €1,000 on 1 September 2017. One can see the logic and fairness in an incremental process, despite the earlier attempts by Opposition speakers to distort the message. They would love to create the erroneous impression that in some way there is an unfairness in the process; there is an absence of unfairness but there is patriotism, fairness and a democratic buy-in by everybody. People with annual remuneration of between €65,000 and €110,000 will see a 50% restoration of the 2013 reduction on 1 April 2017. It goes on in a similar vein. I read this into the record so people will accept it. It is terrible and sad that in the absence of positive proposals, people have attempted to distort the message.

Section 3 of the Bill deals with increasing salaries as I outlined. During the fiscal consolidation and the restoration of public finances, the amount deducted for pensions from salaries increased and the amount paid in pensions decreased. This is being rectified. The exemption threshold for pension-related deductions in 2015 will increase from €15,000 to €17,500. This is at the bottom end of the scale. From 1 January 2016, the exemption threshold for the pension-related deduction will increase to €26,083 and so on. The point is the process is designed to favour those in the more difficult position. The Bill seeks to restore the status quoof pay and pensions.

The Bill is effectively restoring the fortunes of our public servants, who so patriotically took those cuts. The effect of our public servants taking those cuts was to restore public finances to order.

That might sound abstract. To a person with their back against the wall, living in quite difficult circumstances, talk about restoring public finances is very abstract. In fact, it makes us competitive, so that we can bring in jobs. It reduces costs in the country and it attracts inward investment. In fact, it gives jobs to our children and brings home our emigrants. That is what this Government is about. It is not abstract economics; it is about getting jobless people work. Every time somebody gets work, €20,000 goes back to the Exchequer. However, there is far more at stake. There is the dignity of the person, their full participation in society and all that goes with it.

I am extraordinarily proud that as a result of all the sacrifices by our people, some of which have been so satisfactorily and fairly redressed and restored in this legislation, we are now creating 1,300 new jobs a week. Great credit must go to the Government and, in particular, to the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, for the extraordinary achievement that we are now creating 1,300 jobs a week and that we have created 125,000 jobs since the beginning of the Action Plan for Jobs. It is a phenomenal achievement against a backdrop of the sickening spectacle of lengthening dole queues and emigration. That is the backdrop and that is what has been reversed. I am so proud of that; this is what politics is about. We are all in politics because we want our people to have the dignity of work; to have quality of life; to raise families, if they wish, in good circumstances; and to live in dignity.

Some emigrants left by choice and with a particular ambition to travel, and that is fair game, but many, tragically, left because they were forced out of this country and we want those economic migrants to have the option to come home. Thankfully, the statistics would suggest that they are coming home and that the trend is now reversing itself. Thank God we are seeing the day, and what a wonderful day it is, that somebody who was unhappily exiled in Melbourne, Sydney, New York, London, or wherever, will now be back in their own parish for Christmas. Many people who come home this Christmas to their families will not be returning abroad. We can be collectively proud of that. That is the backdrop and that is what has been achieved by the public servants and by our people. That is what is being restored and sorted out in this legislation.

It is horrific to hear the harping on from Opposition spokespeople earlier, erroneously suggesting an unfairness. What is unfair about putting 50 cent on the minimum wage, as per the recommended rate? What is unfair about a €5 increase in the family income supplement? What is unfair about a phased, graduated and lower income-oriented reduction in the universal social charge? What is unfair about a 75% restoration of the Christmas bonus? What is unfair about giving children preschool education until they go into primary school? What is unfair about a €5 increase in child benefit, which is the most socially equalising and fairest way of distributing income, as is supported by all empirical findings? What is unfair about all of that? What is fair about it is that it creates more jobs, because the budget measures that have been taken stimulate the domestic economy.

Lower paid people who have been affected and social welfare recipients, the people who get the Christmas bonuses, spend that money immediately on domestic products. They spend that money on products locally. A multiplier effect takes hold in the local economy. They go into the shops to buy gifts for their grandchildren or to buy food, the necessary things, in the local shops. They buy goods; they do not spend it on exotic imported materials. It goes into the economy the next morning or the next hour. It goes into the economy the minute they get it. It has a multiplier effect. More money is generated, more jobs are created, more savings are effected in the social protection budget, and there are more implications for the good of our society. More socially reforming measures can be taken in the subsequent budget as less is paid out in jobseeker's allowance. Those are the implications of this budget. That is the strategy on which it is predicated. That is the whole thinking behind the budget.

In the words of one columnist and commentator, the criticism of the budget is a selfish kind of a proposition. There are people saying that the economy has reached a point where it is all right and it needs no further stimulus. They say we should let well enough alone and make no further investment in it, that we should selfishly keep the status quofor those of us who have jobs, who have a stake in society and have ownership of something. That selfish view, sadly, permeates fairly well and it is contributed to by some significant commentators in our country who should know better. The truth is that while we have made mammoth, massive, unprecedented, unexpected and unheralded successes in bringing jobs to our people, while we have created thousands of jobs - 125,000 - while our emigrants are starting to come home, and while all that is true, tragically, over 9% of our people remain unemployed. While that tragic reality remains, we need to continue to stimulate our economy. It is wrong and terribly selfish of people to say: "Let's sit on the eggs now. Let's forget about the unemployed." We cannot forget about the unemployed.

The Minister, Deputy Noonan, constructed an outstanding, socially progressive budget - the public is very well aware of that and the reaction substantiates it - which will stimulate the domestic economy further, create jobs in retail, create jobs in services, and create jobs for our returning emigrants. As well as the various measures he took in regard to taxation for our farmers, a wonderful measure in this budget, and one I am particularly proud of, relates to hauliers. We do not have railways in the part of the country that I and the Minister of State, Deputy McHugh, represent. The part of Ireland that we represent and that the Acting Chairman represents is not well served in transport terms and the small local haulier is central to the domestic and local economy there. The local haulier is needed to transport goods from A to B. It is the lifeblood of society there and now, as a consequence of this budget, a haulier with ten lorries - a very small haulier, as most of them have in excess of that - will have an effective saving of €40,000 a year in road tax. The maximum tax per vehicle will be €900 when it was in excess of €5,000. This is the social and economic engineering in this budget to get our people back to work. That haulier is not going to put that in the Cayman Islands or buy a yacht with it. He is going to buy another lorry or employ another worker. It will reduce costs for local businesses and the effect of that provision in the budget, which will be implemented by the Finance Act, will be more jobs in the haulage sector and in every sector, as the cost of moving goods around reduces. It is a wonderful idea and well done to the Minister and the Government. I am so proud to stand here as a Government Deputy and to reference that achievement and its implications.

Just as that will mean job creation, so too will the taxation measures for farmers. There are many important and implicit changes here. For example, it will now become financially attractive for a farmer to form a partnership with his son or his favourite nephew or niece - thank God we have reached that point - or with his favourite relative, to hand over the farm.

We have a wrong age structure in agriculture in Ireland. We have too old a sector still farming, in many instances, out of economic necessity. This will make it a financially attractive option to hand over the farm and that will stimulate production and on-farm and off-farm employment. That is another job-creating measure of the budget and it tallies nicely with this Bill, which is giving back and is the reconstruction of a normal society.

The Bill gives back in a graduated way the income that public servants lost. It is only right. It is their own income returned. They made the big patriotic selfless step and they will be rewarded for it, or rather given back what is just. Those public servants, because of what they did, will have now have two years' preschool for their children up to the age of five. Those public servants may have youngsters working in initial employment where the minimum wage is all they can get, and that minimum wage will increase. Public servants at the lower end of the public service in terms of salary may be recipients of the family income supplement and they will get a €5 increase. Public servants who have children will get a €5 increase in child benefit. In essence, the leap of faith that those public servants made in the Haddington Road agreement, in the Lansdowne Road agreement and in previous agreements was justified and they are now being rewarded for it. That income is going back into their pocket. Their society has been reconstructed and they are now the beneficiaries of their own act of patriotism, their investment in their future and their investment in their children's future.

The alternative was to allow the country to go into the abyss and down a serious road. As a result of the public servants who wrote the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements, because of the various social welfare recipients who exercised restraint and because of the general patriotism, selflessness and democratic-rootedness of our people, we will not have the kind of sad and tragic circumstances that apply in other countries. In Ireland, there will not be a Syriza that will lead the people to the top of the mountain and back down again. That is the kind of situation we avoided here.

This legislation is fair and equitable. It targets the lower paid initially. It is graduated and it restores the income of our public servants. It restores the previous rate of deduction of pension and, ultimately, it brings up pension rates. It also brings back collective bargaining and within the legislation is the potential for increased incomes as society normalises. It is a good day's work and we should be happy to ungrudgingly and unanimously adopt it in this House.

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