John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

It does. My mother often said self praise is no praise, and I am sure the Leas-Chathaoirleach's mother said it to him too. There is no praise in this motion for the Government or from the Government's point of view. We can all cite numerous examples of broken promises from this Government since it took office two years ago. In the programme for Government it promised to "keep down personal and business taxes in order to strengthen and maintain the competitive position of the Irish economy." Today we debated competitiveness within the economy. We are all familiar with the recent report showing that Ireland's position in the international competitiveness league had dropped from fourth to 30th within a year or two. This is another example of the Government breaking a promise made in the programme for Government in 2002.

This Government has also introduced stealth taxes and new charges. The burden of tax has been transferred to other areas of charges introduced and increased by the Government. I see the Minister for Finance coming into the House and I welcome him on one of his first visits here since his appointment. These stealth charges are starting to hit home. Last year's budget added €600 to the tax bill of every household. That came on top of €1,200 in the previous year which makes a total of €1,800 directly added to the tax bill of every household since this Government took office. It changed the emphasis and the method of tax collecting but did not reduce the overall burden on the PAYE taxpayer.

I have a list of 31 different charges increased significantly in the past two years, including, motor tax, the drugs refund scheme, Voluntary Health Insurance charges and television licences. Rather than preside over a decrease in PAYE in that time, the Government has presided over an increase, primarily by not adjusting the tax bands in the past two budgets. This is a very sneaky way to get money.

It was obvious to anyone observing from outside that in the run-up to the last election there was a massive splurge of cash to buy votes from the electorate. In the aftermath, the Government had to get the money back and the most obvious, easy but underhand way to do that was not to adjust the tax bands and therefore charge people at much higher rates than it should have done and than it committed to charging before and in the programme for Government.

The failure to widen the tax band is the ultimate form of stealth tax. Half of all income earners will pay at the higher rate in 2004. In its 2002 programme, the Government committed to reducing the figure from 28% to 20%. It made that commitment in the programme for Government two years ago but as with many commitments it made then, it has since reneged on it. The Minister is accelerating away from achieving the commitment given in the programme for Government. If corporation tax is excluded, the total tax take has doubled since 1996. That can be explained by the fact that more people are working now than in 1996——