Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

The former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, was known as the Minister for zero tolerance. The Minister for Finance should be renamed Minister for zero credibility. In April he told us everything was going brilliantly in the economy. In June we heard leaks about €900 million in cutbacks. He denied that the leaks were true and said that in fact matters were worse. We were then told we were facing deficits and just as we were getting used to that idea, we were back into surplus. He is a mixture of David Blaine, the fantastic magician, and Pat Shortt from D'Unbelievables. That is the school of economics from which he comes. Perhaps former Taoiseach Mr. Charles Haughey was correct when he said never to appoint an accountant as Minister for Finance.

The Minister has no credibility. I certainly do not attach much importance to the Department of Finance's figures. I am worried about its independence and about how true the figures really are. Were they cooked to suit the Minister on the eve of the budget? This is a poor budget. I am disappointed with the increase in VAT. We can talk about lower taxes until we are blue in the face, but we are faced with VAT every day, whether we are buying lunch or equipment in a shop or building a house.

I found Senator Morrissey's contribution on first-time buyers amusing. A few weeks ago a first-time buyer was entitled to about €4,000 in grant aid. If he or she was building a house of a certain area, VAT was payable at 12.5%. From now on it will be 13.5%. The Department of the Environment and Local Government has also instructed local authorities to put a levy of around €6,000 on planning permissions. We are now talking about an increase of around €10,000 in the price of a house.

Senator Morrissey may be able to quote figures back at me, but he omitted to say that while the Minister's scheme to assist first-time buyers might benefit more people, the money involved is actually less and if one divides the number of people involved in the scheme by the amount of money, they come away with a fraction of the amount.