Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Tim O'Malley.

Last year I looked at the budget as a schoolteacher would and I gave the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, a low honours mark, somewhere in the upper 60%. This year, I am not going to be a schoolteacher but a cook, examining the cake the Minister for Finance has baked in this budget. Last year, I said "he tries hard but could do better." This year I want to see if this cake has the sort of ingredients we want. Will it be a big enough cake? Will it be healthy, of long-life and will it be divided fairly? I seldom disagree with Senator Ryan, but on this occasion I do when he claims the division of the cake is the important matter. It is the size of the cake, together with its division, that is important.

Is the cake big enough? The Minister for Finance has worked hard to prove himself over the last several years. He has ensured the cake will be bigger through ways of incentivising the nation. Over the years, he has done a good job on this, particularly through reducing various kinds of taxation. I am not a betting man, but when he reduced betting tax – I think it was from 10% to 5% – he took in more revenue and when he reduced it again to 2%, he took in even more. The same happened when he reduced the capital gains tax from 40% to 20%. That is one way of baking a bigger cake.

While he has done nothing particular to bake a bigger cake in this budget, he has taken steps towards doing so. If we take his word for it, he projects that he will increase employment by 23,000 in the coming year. If he manages this, it will be a bigger cake. He projects that GNP will rise for the next three years by 3%, 4% and 4.5% respectively. Those are not the heady heights we had in previous years, but if that is the objective of the Minister and his sums are correct, he will have done well.