Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)

A budget is about choices. The Government could have helped the squeezed middle and the working poor, but what did it do? In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, rents will go up from March, the local property tax has just gone up, and electricity prices are going up at the same time as groceries and other items are going up in price. Some of these increases could have been addressed but what did the Government do, even though it knows there is more economic hardship on middle-income householders and workers in particular? There is more tax, more LPT, more carbon tax and even higher rents.

Workers on a median income will be worse off next year. Everybody has agreed on that today. Election promises to look after the carer's allowance and abolish the means test have been forgotten. There should have been targeted supports in terms of energy credits for low- and middle-income households. USC could have been reduced or cancelled for those on below €40,000, along with adjusted tax bands for workers, to take account of inflation. That should have happened. Instead, workers on a median income will pay more tax and face higher prices. Child benefit needed to be increased to at least keep pace with inflation. We know everything cannot be done, but that should have kept pace with inflation.

On VAT, I know a lot of small restaurants and cafés are struggling, but if the Government wanted to assist those businesses, it could have cut the VAT rate for them on the first €2 million or €3 million of turnover. Instead, it gave a tax cut, from 13.5% to 9%, across the board at a cost of almost €700 million. The real beneficiaries will be the large hotel groups and fast food chains, such as Costa, McDonald's, Burger King, etc.

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