Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

It is the Minister who is spending money, giving it to big businesses. Why is she introducing the business support package through changing the threshold for the lower employer PRSI rate, costing the Social Insurance Fund €60 million? She is giving the businesses €60 million and will take €60 million from workers next year. She is taking from workers to give to businesses, yet she pretends nothing is happening here and that everything just goes on. She also talks about 0.1%. It will be 0.1% next year but over the subsequent years it will go up to 4.7%. What is missing from this discussion, because Fine Gael represents the interests of big businesses, is the fact that we have one of the lowest employer PRSI rates in Europe. An analysis by the Government's own tax strategy group found that even the higher rate of employer PRSI is less than half the EU average and less than a quarter of what bosses in France pay. The employers are therefore the ones who can afford to pay for this scheme.

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