Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The point is that we do not accept the Minister must rob Peter to pay Paul. Workers are entitled to pay restoration, even in excess of the proposed €1,000, but we do not accept that money should be taken from services to fund that. We are seeking a commitment that services which are starved of funding will not be hit as a result of this measure. The Minister likes to ask where else the money will come from. We are tired of telling him that his envelope is too small because he consistently resists our appeals to him to look elsewhere for additional revenue. Additional moneys could be found by making the vulture funds and companies like Apple pay their taxes, by introducing a financial transaction tax, and by obliging landlords and higher earners to pay more taxes. There is plenty of money to be had and it should be used to redistribute the wealth in this country in a fair way, which allows us both to fund public services and give public sector and other workers decent pay levels.

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