Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

I acknowledge and welcome the 9% VAT rate for hospitality, hairdressers and all the others concerned. However, when other budgets are put in place, measures apply straight away. If the price of diesel is going up, that can be done tonight, but when it is a cut in the VAT rate, people have to wait to July. A lot of businesses will not be in business by July because they were banking on the VAT rate coming down to sustain the three wage increases that have been applied in the past two and a half years. It is hard enough to keep the doors opened. If the VAT reduction had come in now, people would have looked favourably on not increasing their prices. The cost of everything, such as energy, is going up. If there is a base margin, prices have to go up.

I acknowledge the movement on the income limit for carer's allowance, which went up to €1,000. There should be no price put on caring. There should be no means test for caring. Caring is caring and there should be no price on it. Regardless whether people have the means, the carer's allowance should not be means tested. Carers provide care that the Government cannot provide. They save the Government money on care because they are caring for people for whom the Government cannot provide care. There should not be a means test.

I have spoken previously on the universal social charge. By lowering the USC without moving the tax bracket up, the Government taxes people more. This budget should have been about giving back to people who are working. Give them back something, however small, rather than taking more. The USC was brought in as a temporary measure for five years, but it still stands. The Government reduced it, when it should not be there any more, and it raised the tax base. How can the Government look working people in the eye when the price of food has gone up, the price of fuel in their car and getting to work has gone up and the price of transporting their children anywhere has gone up because of inflation? There is no rewards system in place for people who work. Let nobody be under any illusion. The Minister is holding the purse closed because he reckons the Government can hold together for the next couple of years. When election year comes around, the Government is going to hand out the sweets again and say it is great but it is going to put people through a couple of years of torture and stress as they try to keep their heads above water.

An awful lot of agencies have told me that mothers and fathers are going without food to make sure their children are fed. They are working and they have to do without food. Ask the people who are supplying the food banks and they will tell us the people who are coming to them. People have put houses over their heads, have not been a burden on the State and have agreed to work hard for the less well-off and the Government does not give them any bit of a reward. I ask the Minister to look at the vulnerable people in this country. They are now the people who are working.

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