Derek McDowell (Labour)

I support neither the motion nor the amendment, but that will surprise no one. I recently looked at a few figures issued by the Department of Finance. It calculated that it would cost approximately €650 per annum to extend medical card free GP services, perhaps not including pharmaceuticals, to everyone. If one increased our current ODA contribution to the 0.7% requirement in one go, from €450 million to €750 million, it would cost us approximately €300 million a year. To abolish the carers' means test, depending on whose figures one accepts, would cost somewhere between €150 million and €300 million a year. I mention those numbers because I read an article last weekend by Robbie Kelleher, the stockbroker and former Dublin player, as I am sure others did. He wrote that he expected that the Government would have about €850 million to "give away" in tax cuts this year.

It is a remarkable commentary on the state of debate in Ireland that matters are expressed in these terms. We take in more than expected in recurring tax — in excess of €850 million — and the view is that we should give it back. No one considers the possibility of doing away with the carers' means test. We do not look at providing a free GP service to everyone or making a dramatic increase in our ODA. One could give another dozen examples of what we could do with that money, but the argument centres on our having to give it back in income tax cuts.

Those of us who argue for an alternative have more or less failed. We have lost the argument, since people do not see this as an opportunity to do big things in social provision. They see it as another opportunity to give people another €10 in their back pocket so that they might put it into private consumption. That is a terrible pity. After the American election last week, it seems the Democrats are a long way towards losing the argument on how they do things there. Unfortunately, the left in Ireland is a long way towards losing the argument without really making it, and that is also a terrible shame.

As the Minister and Senator Mansergh will certainly know, for a long time since 1994, which is the year from which one can really date the start of the boom, there was general consensus in this country on what had brought it about in the first place. It has almost become a mantra: FDI, partnership, low corporation tax rates and demographic changes throughout the 1980s leading to a lower dependency rate and so on. Most of us agreed that that was genuinely the case and that a matrix of factors had come together to cause the boom. It is interesting that people who in many cases should, and in some cases do, know better are trying to retro-fit another argument. They are now trying to say that lower direct taxes, principally on income, brought about and sustained the boom. That simply does not stand up. I concede that they made a contribution, but it is simply not fair or reasonable to say that low direct income tax rates in the early 1990s brought about the boom, which one can date to 1993 or 1994. It is a simple matter of fact that that was before direct tax rates had started to come down.