Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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7. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his views on whether the budget adjustment should be levied in as progressive a manner as possible; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42474/13]

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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11. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he plans to equality proof cuts made by him in budget 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42472/13]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 11 together.

With regard to next week's budget, while the primary objective has been to reduce the deficit and return stability to the public finances, it has been vital to the Government to spread the burden of adjustments in as fair and as equitable a manner as possible while also seeking to minimise any negative impact on economic growth. Furthermore, it is the Government's responsibility to ensure all available resources are spent carefully and that critical public services continue to be delivered.

In this context, the Government recognises that expenditure on social supports has an important impact on stabilising our domestic economy through supporting the overall demand for goods and services. Over recent years, we have maintained primary weekly rates of social welfare payments. This year we will spend €20.2 billion on social welfare. This means that all pensioners and all those under 66 years of age, such as people with disabilities or jobseekers, will have their weekly primary payments fully maintained, and that has been the case since this Government took office.

Similarly, in the area of education, the Government has protected DEIS resources. In budget 2013, for example, we ensured there was no overall change to DEIS related staffing levels or DEIS funding. As part of the DEIS programme, over the course of this year some €93 million is being provided to 850 schools supporting 167,000 pupils. This funding is provided, in addition to the normal funding allocation, to address educational disadvantage by prioritising the educational needs of children and young people from disadvantaged communities, from preschool right through second level education.

All Ministers are responsible for assessing policy proposals in their areas, and considerations of equality form an important component of budgetary discussions by Government. When making Government decisions on budget matters, the Government is very much aware of issues such as gender equality, persons experiencing or at risk of poverty or social exclusion, and people with disabilities. These proposals are under careful consideration by Government in advance of finalising the 2014 Estimates and, on budget day, the Government will publish illustrative cases showing the effect of major changes in revenue and certain social welfare payments.

Furthermore, as the Deputy is aware, I introduced the new whole-of-year budgeting reform, which was announced in the Comprehensive Expenditure Report 2012-2014. This new process has been designed to enhance the role and the policy relevance of the Oireachtas in particular with regard to the role of committees in ex ante consideration of resource allocation priorities in each area. That is the point I made to Deputy Wallace. In future, I intend that this will provide a forum in which Oireachtas committees and Departments can assess and discuss the equality implications of any policy proposal in advance of the final Estimates being decided upon.

With regard to the progressive nature of the budget, I point out to the Deputies that the ESRI recently published analysis on the distributional impacts of budgets 2009 to 2013. Its analysis shows that the overall adjustment to date has been progressive in nature, with the lowest losses occurring in the lower income deciles and the highest losses in the top income deciles. In addition to this, it is important to point out that Ireland's tax and benefits system has been shown by the OECD to be highly redistributive, with the tax system shown to be the most progressive of developed economies.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I was surprised that we were grouping some of the questions. While it is a regular procedure we are normally notified. I checked my e-mail to see whether I received a notification of this grouping schedule.

In respect of my earlier question about the ASTI dispute, I received an e-mail during the course of the discussion here from a teacher from a school in County Laois for which I booked a visit to the Dáil next month. The teacher apologised for not being able to participate due to the industrial action. The teacher is unable to accompany the students so the trip is cancelled. The teacher apologised for any inconvenience caused. I am not the person to whom the teacher needs to apologise, it is the pupils who are losing out. I would ask the Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, to do something about that. I have just outlined an example of an impact of this dispute on students. It is remarkable that it came at this time.

I am very concerned about the unprogressive nature of budgets in recent years. The Minister nicely glossed over the report relating to 2009 to 2013. Yes, it is correct because the budgets in 2009, 2010 and 2011 were progressive but the two budgets introduced by this Government were not progressive. The Minister has masked the overall progressive nature of the earlier budgets with the two introduced by the Government which were not progressive. The Government's two budgets do not stand up.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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In respect of the first point about the ASTI, I am not sure-----

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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It is an aside.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Deputy made the point so I will respond to it. I am not sure whether he is addressing his comments to the Government or the ASTI. I regret that the ASTI is taking action. It is regrettable that the students from Deputy Fleming's constituency cannot visit the House. The ASTI is the only union outside the Haddington Road agreement. I would ask it to reconsider and allow the Haddington Road agreement to impact beneficially on many of its younger members but that is something it will have to reflect on.

In respect of the progressivity of the budget, one cannot take a snapshot. If one has maximised the income take so that the marginal rate is now one of the highest, can one keep going? One can be more progressive each time but in relative terms, if one already has the most progressive income tax system, one cannot keep pushing it up to suit an additional snapshot. The Deputy is making a very fair point. We need a better and more accurate snapshot because many things that are looked at under the current switch system do not take account of capital gains adjustments and other factors which impact on the totality of the budget. One needs to look at the entire tax package, not the minor adjustment that is made at budget time, to see whether it is progressive as it sits with other taxation regimes. It is a simple song to sing but it is an inaccurate song to sing if one does not have accurate tools to measure the totality of the tax and welfare provisions in a society.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I am surprised by the Minister's comment about this issue. I thought I was listening to a Fine Gael Minister saying that one cannot keep pushing up the tax rate. The Minister sounds like a convert. In respect of the Economic Management Council, has he been captured by Fine Gael? I worry about the Labour Party and the spending line Ministers, particularly in health, social protection and education. Those Ministers are relying on this Minister to keep the Fine Gael side at bay but when he comes in here to sing the Fine Gael song that one cannot keep pushing up tax rates, I worry about who is looking at the people who will see unnecessary cuts next week because of that Fine Gael attitude that seems to have infected the Minister.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Not only do I want to look after the people who are most vulnerable, which is what we have done very effectively, I also want to look after workers. We cannot keep screwing workers either if that is what Fianna Fáil policy is. We must give some recognition for work and allow people to have a decent take-home wage as opposed to a headline wage. That is a reality too so we must strike a balance. We have struck it reasonably well - protecting all core social welfare payments and DEIS schools, reversing the previous Government's disastrous decision to cut the minimum wage for the poorest workers in the country and taking the lowest cohort of wage earners out of the universal social charge. By any analysis, this Government made progressive decisions to undo the regressive decisions the previous Government made.

Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)
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I call on Deputy Wallace. Is it Deputy McDonald? Ladies first. Deputy Wallace is allowing Deputy McDonald to go first.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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Ladies first.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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That is very gallant of him. This echoes the sentiment of my earlier question. The Minister instanced the area of DEIS and said that the Government did not touch those posts for the most disadvantaged schools. However, this was only because it got caught out. The Minister for Education and Skills was heading like a steam train to remove teachers from the most disadvantaged schools in the State and what happened? Parents, teachers and public representatives kicked up an almighty stink about it and the Minister had to back off.

The Minister also spoke about how considerations of gender and risk of poverty are factored into the Government's thinking. However, independent research has reflected that those worst affected by the Government's budgets have been women, in particular women parenting alone. It is for that reason that I again make the point to the Minister that one cannot be random about this, look into one's own heart and come up with one's own conclusions. One needs an objective manner with which one measures these things. That is why equality budgeting and equality assessments, as referred to by Deputy Wallace, are so necessary. That is the only way one can truly talk about being equal, fair, equitable and all the language so beloved of the Minister.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I have three points to make in response to Deputy McDonald's comments. First, I agree with her entirely that we need an objective analysis and not a partisan analysis from either side of the House. Objectively, if one looks at the totality of our public spending and taxation regime, one will see that we have a very progressive one in place. Can one tweak it one way or the other, do a snapshot of that and pretend that is an accurate snapshot of the totality? No, one cannot, which is why I am saying we need better tools to do that. I know that Deputy McDonald will use whatever data she can to her own political advantage but that is not good in terms of society.

Deputy McDonald mentioned lone parents. There has been a change, which has been explained. We would like to see greater opportunity for women who have children alone to get back into the workplace and not be permanently dependent on welfare. That is the Scandinavian model that has been looked at independently by outside specialists in this area. They are the recommendations. It is the norm in the developed countries we look to like those in Scandinavia. The Deputy can have those debates with the Minister for Social Protection.

In respect of disadvantage, we have focused on disadvantage and disability significantly in our expenditure. That if why if one looks at disability and adds up what we spend as a Government on disability issues this year, one will see it is €6.2 billion. In the education area alone, our expenditure on disability is now coming close to what we spend on third-level education so we take the fact that every child deserves full participation very seriously. Could we do more if we had more resources? The answer is "Yes" and please God, when we fix our economy, we will have more resources.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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I am surprised by some of the Minister's boasts about the progressive tax system. I read last week that-----

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Bluntly, I am surprised by Deputy Wallace talking about tax.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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I have paid more over my lifetime than the Minister has.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I have paid everything that was due.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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I have paid over €15 million. I am not going to take lectures from the Minister who will get far more out of this system than I ever will.

Research by Grant Thornton shows that successive budgets have been regressive and have had a disproportionate impact on lower and middle income households. In a study released last week, Grant Thornton found that a family with one parent earning €40,000 experienced increases in taxes of 125% while a family with both parents earning €40,000 saw a 54% rise in taxes and a family with an income of €190,000 witnessed a 29% increase in its tax bill. Evidently, the burden of austerity is being shouldered by those who have less. That is hardly rocket science. In respect of Deputy Fleming's point, will ASTI members be made to suffer for their decision not to rubber-stamp the breaking of the Croke Park agreement?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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A number of questions have been asked and I will answer the last one first. I would ask ASTI members to come under the umbrella of the rest of the public service. That is all. In respect of the notion of rubber-stamping, it was a democratic vote. Members were asked to vote and they made their own democratic decision to exclude themselves. It was not a case of rubber-stamping anything. In Deputy Wallace's view of the world, if they agree, it is a rubber-stamp while if they disagree, it is a democratic decision.

In respect of whether we have a progressive or regressive income tax system, my judgment is predicated on the independent analysis of the OECD. I will send Deputy Wallace the tables.

Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)
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We will move on to Question No. 8.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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My question is linked to Question No. 11.

Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)
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We have exceeded the time allowed for these questions. I have already been generous.