Shane Ross (Independent)

Many of us on these benches, one of whom is Senator Norris, would have liked to have co-operated and welcomed this budget and the coming Finance Bill. There was a sense that we were in a state of financial emergency and that we should rally around and not be ultra-critical of everything that occurs. It is very easy to be critical and it is easy to be in opposition in this period because any cuts will be unpopular and will give politicians plenty of openings and the possibility to champion some cause. Many of us have supported difficult decisions this Government has made in the past.

It is a pity that Senator MacSharry invoked the name of his father because this Government is turning its back on some of the great Ministers for Finance that Fianna Fáil has produced. I include Mr. MacSharry, Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern and Charlie McCreevy. This budget is so badly thought out in its strategy that we are entitled to criticise it on strategic grounds.

I do not understand why there is such an extraordinary emphasis on tax and such a small emphasis on cuts. The decision to introduce an income tax of 1% up to €100,000 and 2% up to €200,000 smacks of laziness and easy figures. It raises €1 billion. One can see the civil servants or the Cabinet sitting around thinking it is great to get €1 billion that way. It is the most extraordinarily crude instrument I have seen any Government introduce in any Finance Bill or budget. It is unfair and is crude in every way when it makes no exceptions of that sort.

It is fair enough in a state of national emergency to ask well-off people to pay more than those who are badly off but it is not fair to say that those who have benefitted from the Celtic tiger should be those who are penalised the greatest. A great number of those who benefitted from the Celtic tiger are those who worked the hardest. We should not regard this as punishment or a penalty for it. These people must be recognised. The Celtic tiger was built, to some extent, on the sweat of the middle classes, who do not deserve to be punished. We should not hold them up as easy meat and fat cats who did not work for it. They did work for it.

There are increases in income tax and capital gains tax, from which the Minister hopes to raise €160 million. God knows how this will be done because there is no capital gains tax on shares or property. I do not know how he expects to raise that sum of money. There are increases in VAT and DIRT in a move to hit the savers and depositors, those who have had a tough time. I do not understand the strategy behind this except that it is easy mathematics, whereby they know approximately what they will get and tax it.

There was an alternative, to rebalance this by saying we would make serious cuts. Let us ask the question why FÁS is untouched. The €1 billion allocated is a nice neat figure that the Government could have examined. The sum remains and some feeble excuse is given in the explanatory memorandum. What about Enterprise Ireland? According to the budget document, Enterprise Ireland receives a grant for administrative and general expenses of €98 million and gives €56 million in grants to industry. It costs more to run it than what it gives in grants. The IDA is almost exactly the opposite way around, giving grants of €90 million while it costs €43 million to administer. There must be massive waste in Enterprise Ireland and State agencies. The Government has not tackled the so-called commercial, State-sponsored bodies either. I am disappointed that all the emphasis is on tax and so little on spending. The Government has messed it up.