Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like the budget, this Bill is most notable for its lack of vision. It largely ignores the fact that 637,000 people in Ireland are living in poverty and 193,000 of those are children. Some of the contributions from the Government show that trickle-down economics are still in vogue. That is not how things should be. I will focus on what is missing from this and why I believe the Government has fallen at the first fence and failed to bring about the transformational long-term change that we need.

Sinn Féin proposed a tax on multinational corporations that would raise €720 million in 2021. We included this proposal in our general election manifesto before the Covid-19 pandemic and in the alternative budget we proposed last month. Our proposal would change a rule on the taxation of some of the multinationals here. I am tired of hearing that if we ask these companies to pay tax they will disappear or take flight. We are not saying anything about the 12.5% corporation tax, but we must have tax fairness. When Sinn Féin has argued for this measure in the past, the current Minister for Finance has argued that it would raise more money now but that would balance out in the long run. He has therefore suggested it is not worth doing. This is only true if things remain as they are today. We have no guarantees. The only way to guarantee this revenue is to begin collecting it now. Tax justice delayed is tax justice denied. Even if we had fully accepted the argument of the Minister for Finance, we in Sinn Féin feel that the longest waiting lists in Europe and the housing crisis were enough to justify accessing the money as soon as possible. If the money had been accessed our society, particularly our health services, could have been in a better position going into the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, in the midst of a global pandemic, there has never been a more pressing time to do this. In this regard, budget 2021 was another missed opportunity. The Government ignored our proposal yet again, leaving €720 million on the table that could have been used to pay student nurses, invest in hospitals and schools and support people who are out of work. The Government has again chosen not to avail of this measure, though this time it did not argue that it would only raise money upfront. I do not think it could wheel this excuse out during a global pandemic.

I do not know why the Government refuses to bring in these very sensible measures. Instead it is doing its best to retrospectively tax the emergency Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment. This is why people feel the Government is absolutely disconnected from them and has no relevance in their lives. This is not some radical measure. It is a reform that has been recommended to the Government by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, an advisory body known for its fiscal conservatism. The Government should explain why it left this money on the table at a time when families are struggling to get by on the Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment or by working on the front line for very low wages.

On top of that €720 million, Sinn Féin proposed a wealth tax on fortunes over €1 million, which would have generated more than €89 million. However, the Government could not equalise the jobseeker's allowance rates for under-25s. What kind of message does that send to young people throughout the country? A 3% solidarity tax on incomes over €140,000 and the removal of tax breaks on income over €100,000 would have brought in €388 million. That would have gone a long way towards covering the cost of a hugely necessary disability payment.

The tax breaks for banks that have been bailed out were also left in place. We are not proposing giveaways or attempting to opt out. This is about challenging the status quo and applying fairness to how the State works and who it works for. The changes we suggested would have been a step towards a fairer society. Carers have been given a miserable increase of 41 cent per day. Our care assistants will receive an extra 10 cent an hour. These are the people we needed to prioritise in this Finance Bill.

See this speech in context