Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a dangerous thing to say the public was not convinced by my argument. Those are the words the Minister used. I remind the Minister that in excess of 18,000 people voted for me. The people in Donegal were fairly convinced of my arguments. I am not sure how many people voted for the Minister as a first preference but it was not at that level.

I would not go into that silly type of argument because we know a multitude of arguments are put forward in terms of the electorate. To suggest the electorate did not agree with my argument, there are enough facts to show, by getting the highest vote in the State, that does not stand up to scrutiny. If the Minister is suggesting it is the party, we would have to look at the whole party apparatus and what it was and what it did and did not agree on. That is the beauty of democracy and I respect the fact people want to look after those who are cushioned. That is fine. The Minister is entitled to do that and if there are enough people there to vote for it, that is fine. We saw a situation where in the previous election Fine Gael came third and still ended up in government.

That is getting away from the point. If there is tax to be raised, where does the burden fall? I made the point earlier that there are people who will be impacted by this. The Minister may dismiss it as small amounts and so on but it adds up when it is an extra bit in one's home insurance, car insurance, groceries, heating, home heating oil and electricity. It all adds up. That is where the pressures are. There are a group of people out there who notice all of these cent and euro. There are other groups who do not notice them at all.

I was at a committee earlier where the Minister for public expenditure spoke about 32 Ministers - all the Ministers in the current Government bar six - who were overpaid and none of them noticed it. Some were overpaid by up to €30,000. I am not blaming the individual Ministers because it is not their job to calculate that. Then we have 30 senior civil servants who were also overpaid, and at least one of them to the tune of €280,000, and if they did notice it, they did not tell anybody. There were 30 of them. How were they overpaid by €280,000? It was because they have pension pots in excess of €2 million. When one has a pension pot in excess of €2 million, one has to pay a particular tax the Minister is well familiar with and that tax was not applied properly on the portion above €2 million. The people I spoke about earlier who cannot afford this burden would notice if they got paid €280,000 more. They would notice if they got paid €30,000 more. Indeed, they would notice if they got paid €500 more.

There are at least two different realities here. There are people who are well off. There are people who are comfortable, who do not like to see prices rise and who do not like to see house prices or rents rise because it is more money our of their pockets but they can afford it. It will not put them into a difficult situation. Then there are others, a huge number of them, who are forgotten by this Government and this is another issue where the Government is placing a burden on them unfairly. That will be a discussion we will continue to have. I will continue to try to increase my vote, as I am sure the Minister will try to increase his vote, and continue to win the hearts and minds on that issue and many more.

The election is over. This is about fairness and where those burdens fall. The Minister did not answer the question about the vulture funds and why we do not tax their rental income. The Minister has defended that for the hilt for many years. It is completely and utterly unjustifiable. These are the options we have. I know the Government's position on this. I disagree with it and will push this amendment to a vote.

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