Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. This is far from a Bill that deserves commendation. It is a shameful Finance Bill. It is one that abandons workers for those at the very top. If the Minister was out canvassing, meeting people on the streets or at their doors, they would tell him straight up that they have never felt it as bad and that the Government has abandoned them. The Government has chosen deliberately to ignore the needs of workers in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. It could have done alternatives as we and others have shown but what it did was spend big feathering the nests of developers, landlords and investors.

This Finance Bill, as I said before, has Fine Gael's fingerprints all over it. Its stamp is clearly on every page because only Fine Gael could make a €9.4 billion budget feel like an austerity budget. There is some €2.5 billion in tax cuts - one of the biggest packages of tax cuts we have ever seen - with nothing for workers. It is honestly hard to believe. The Government is putting its hand in the pockets of workers, at a time when they are already to the pin of their collars, to line the pockets of developers, landlords and investors. It is all here in black and white, written page after page in the Finance Bill.

Now that we are on the far side of the election, the Government is not even trying to hide whose side it is on. Abandoning workers by doing nothing on income tax directly breaks the promises the Minister and his party made during the election campaign. I can read to the Minister from his own manifesto the promises he made during the campaign or indeed the commitment in the programme for Government. Fine Gael's manifesto clearly states that income tax would be adjusted each and every year. The Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, said that people needed to be honest that not adjusting income taxes in the face of higher prices and inflation was the same as hiking taxes. That is exactly what the Government has done but where is the honesty now? It can try to spin whatever way it wants but people see through it.

Workers will be worse off next year as a direct result of the Government's decisions. Workers got prudent Paschal but developers, landlords and investors got deep pockets Donohoe. The Minister certainly delivered for them. Nobody felt that more than the big developers with the Minister's VAT cut for apartments. They are larger developers who have been making huge profits for years now. The Minister looked at these massive profits and the growing profit margins and decided to take hundred of millions of euro from hard-pressed workers as taxes and stuff it into the pockets of those developers.

The Minister has claimed and claimed again that this is all about viability to get stalled projects under construction but he made sure that it kicked in on budget night. This has nothing to do with viability. If you look at the figures, this is clearly about a transfer of tax from ordinary people into the pockets of developers. The Minister made sure that thousands of apartments already under construction would benefit. There are 19,000 apartments under construction in Dublin alone. This is not about the viability of them; they are already viable. Between budget day and the end of the month - get this, just 22 days - the Minister told me in a parliamentary question that this VAT cut was going to cost €16 million.

That is nearly €1 million a day the Minister is giving to developers who have built apartments they are just about to sell this month. It is unbelievable, and next year it gets worse. Next year, it will be €250 million and then €390 million the year after. Donohoe is the gift that keeps on giving, but to the developers and those at the top.

Imagine being someone trying to get by on a disability payment or carer's allowance or a worker handing over half their income in rent and seeing this kind of shameless handout to the rich and well connected. How does the Minister explain that to workers who are getting absolutely hammered by the cost-of-living crisis? These are the workers the Minister told the cupboard was bare. It is a shameful and brazen handout to developers that would even make Bertie blush.

Commitments on income tax for workers were not the only election promise to disappear like snow off a ditch. Renters were also thrown overboard in this Finance Bill. As soon as the Minister was back in office, he dropped his commitment to increase the renter's tax credit. Of course, while renters will not get an increase in their tax credit next year, landlords are going to get an increase because they are going to see their tax credit increase next year. They are in line for an increase to €1,000. The Minister's own official warned him that this tax was a bad idea and every year he has increased it. It is now costing the State €160 million. It is shameful. How does the Minister explain to a renter that Fine Gael is more worried about the landlord than the person who is forking out, every month, rents that are extortionate in this city and elsewhere?

Ordinary workers and families either get overlooked or pay higher taxes. Property taxes are going up on 1 November. Nearly every house is going to get an increase as a result of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil's policy. The Minister has increased the carbon tax on petrol and diesel again and he plans to do the same for home heating oil and a bag of coal. This is only the first of five planned hikes by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the independent TDs supporting them.

If the Government does not care about the pain and suffering the cost-of-living crisis is causing people, then it should at least consider the impact it is having on the economy, because people are being squeezed. They are being squeezed by extortionate rents, rip-off insurance costs, childcare costs that are out of control and the cost of food, to the point that there is nothing left over. This has a knock-on effect. Businesses rely on people to have money in their pockets to spend. The cost-of-living crisis weighs like a dead hand on local economies. That is why the cut to the hospitality VAT rate needed to be combined with cost-of-living measures, both in terms of income tax cuts and supports. The hospitality sector knows that a lower VAT rate will not mean as much if people cannot afford to go out. It was also the wrong decision to exclude entertainment categories that always benefited when VAT was changed to 9%. These include cinemas, fairgrounds and amusement parks, the places that families take their children to. That is something we have to revisit on Committee Stage.

Of the 2.8 million people at work in this State, only one small group got anything in this budget. Under the special assignee relief programme, the Minister extended tax breaks to the 3,000 highest earners in this State. They got an average €20,000 write-off in their tax bill. Those in the special assignee relief programme are very special because people have to be earning over €120,000 to even be eligible for this tax break that Paschal has given them. High earners can earn as much as €1 million, and they can pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, a garda or the person serving them in the restaurant. It is disgraceful and despicable, and it is not the type of republic we should have. It speaks completely against equality. This group of 3,000 high earners get a €60 million tax cut in this Finance Bill. Let me put that in perspective. This is far more than the Minister spent increasing the carer's allowance. So, 100,000 carers were given less than the 3,000 high earners in this State. That sums up Fine Gael's priorities and whose side it is on. The people will remember that, particularly when they go and cast their votes on Friday.

This Finance Bill and the budget are damning. They show a Government that is out of touch. In the words of Heather Humphreys, sometimes you just run out of ideas. This is a Government willingly and cynically dropping election promise after election promise. I do not have time today to deal extensively with all the detail. That will happen on Committee Stage over three days of intensive sessions. However, the Minister has signalled, for example, his support for the recommendation on the funds sector report that led many to believe he would move on deemed disposal. I do not see that anywhere in the Finance Bill. I am not sure if that is his intention any more. If that is his intention, he needs to look at a way of having a fair taxation approach across different investment types, in a cost-neutral manner. We need to ensure we stop the very wealthy deferring exit taxes indefinitely without hitting ordinary savers. To throw it completely out, without any protections, would be the wrong thing to do.

The Bill also proposes major and extremely costly changes to the research and development tax credit. This measure will cost over €300 million a year. It is being proposed without any detailed evaluation. While a review was announced in 2025 and a public consultation followed, this has not yet been made public. As we know, the vast majority of the R&D tax credit is used by a small number of large multinationals. Indeed, many of these companies fall under pillar 2, so they have large turnovers. Revenue statistics show that 10% of the credit was claimed in 2023 by companies with fewer than 50 employees, despite the fact that these types of companies make up 98% of Irish businesses. Again, we will be proposing amendments on Committee Stage to address how research and development can be best supported for those smaller businesses.

The living city initiative is another area on which we need far greater detail. How was the geographical area selected? Why was Letterkenny included but not Ballybofey? Why not both? Why is the exclusion that had always applied to developers now being lifted? Why have the selection criteria been extended to pre-1975 houses as opposed to pre-1915 properties? These are issues we will deal with on Committee Stage.

Among the striking things that are not contained in the Bill is that the bailed out banks will continue to get their sweetheart deals. Another is the gold-plated pensions that will kick in on 1 January 2026, giving a tax break of up to €320,000 eventually to every individual who benefits from the measure. This is a Bill that does not deserve the support of the people. We will be voting against it for that reason.

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