Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I wish to comment on what the Government has done on tax. There is a significant tax package of €1 billion and it is completely regressive. The Tánaiste has spoken about this several times. It seems he is very much in favour of unfair tax treatment. He has been promoting this all along. I want to correct something he and his colleagues frequently say, which is that inflation increases the amount of tax people pay. That is simply not true. There is a case for a level of indexation and that should only relate to wage increases, which according to the CSO has been just over 2% in the past year. While there is a justification for increasing the entrance onto the higher tax band by 2%, the Government has gone far further than that with a 9% increase. There is no rationale or justification for that other than shifting money to the people who are better off. There is no explanation or defence for what the Government has done in that regard. Whatever about assisting middle-income people to a certain extent, the only way the Government can justify that is by having a clawback at the higher end. Why would the Tánaiste be entitled to an extra €800? Why would I or anybody in this House be entitled to an extra €800? It makes no sense whatsoever when we have large numbers of people who are literally on the bread line. This is a deeply unfair move. The Tánaiste seems to be claiming a lot of credit for it. He has indicated direction of travel for next year, which is to make our tax system even more regressive. Many people will be paying a high price for the Tánaiste's kind of ideology.

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