Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I thank Senator Quinn for sharing his time with me. I would like to put forward some reasons the budget should be criticised and opposed. We all accept the Government is in dire financial circumstances. There is no question about that. However, many of us would say the Government must bear some responsibility for the state of the economy. That is the least we can expect, given it has held uninterrupted power for the past 11 years. Despite this, in his speech yesterday the Minister for Finance asked all of us to make a common sacrifice and bear an equal part of the burden in what he described as a patriotic call to action.

The programme of cutbacks and closures will not call on everyone to make equal sacrifices. Rather, it will bear most heavily on the most vulnerable. Numerous criticisms were made on this side of the House, and elsewhere, with regard to how the budget will bear heavily on the poor and disadvantaged, which is regrettable. It is a regressive budget because of that.

The Minister has increased a range of taxes, direct and indirect, in a variety of areas of human activity, including hospitals, travel, education, child care and an across-the-board increase on VAT. He has also increased the tax on wine, cigarettes and petrol. If one could be permitted a moment of levity in the gloomy and bleak prospect of this budget, one might wonder why the Government seems to approve of beer-drinking cyclists who take their holidays at home as long as they do not actually own a holiday home here. Bizarrely, beer and spirits have not attracted tax increases similar to those on wine, cigarettes and petrol.

The Minister could have considered other ways of raising revenue. Senator Quinn spoke of imaginative measures. This was the time for imagination and creativity. We and many environmentalists expected and hoped more progressive measures would be introduced to reduce our carbon emissions, which are appallingly high. We have not come close to meeting our Kyoto targets, yet the Minister has deferred the introduction of a carbon tax.

Other than the small charge for second homes, there is no attempt in the budget to introduce any sort of real property tax. Instead, the Minister has taken the easy option of increasing other taxes across the board, most significantly income tax. He has described the increase as a levy — it has been termed the Lenihan levy — but we all know it is an income tax and that it will bear disproportionately on the poor. A levy of 1% will be based on gross income up to €100,000 and 2% above that. The biggest problem in this regard is there is no minimum threshold. This is something that will be debated further in the Houses. There should be a minimum threshold and those who earn below a certain level should not have to pay 1% of their income. Few of us could disagree that those who earn over €100,000 should pay more, but it wrong and regressive to introduce minimum wage earners into the taxation net.

Will there be any winners as a result of the changes in taxation? The only notable tax that brings about a win is one for developers, namely, the significant concession made with the reduction in stamp duty on commercial property. Apart from that, we are all losers. We are losers too in the area for which the Minister of State has responsibility, arts and culture, where there are enormous and swingeing cuts for cultural institutions and the arts generally. We are all losers too in terms of the cutbacks to be imposed on human rights bodies, the Equality Authority and a range of other agencies that do important work. The body that has been working on early childhood education will be closed and numerous other closures and cutbacks are to be imposed. We will all be the losers from that.

We are all losers as a result of the Government's new policy of abolishing or cutting back significantly on universal benefits, for example, the loss of child care supplement for children over five and a half years of age and the loss of child benefit for young adults over 18 in full-time education. What is of concern also is the sinister signal the Minister has sent that he will ask the commission on taxation to examine the payment of universal child benefit more generally. All of these moves are of great concern because they signal a regressive movement towards means testing for every State benefit. Will the Minister of State confirm whether that is the case? If it is, we will see greater inequality and a deepening of the already serious divide between rich and poor.

If we see means testing introduced for every benefit, we will see greater segregation in terms of education and health care. We have already got a two-tier health service, but we will now see two-tier education and child care systems in place, which is most regressive. The question has been asked as to why millionaires' children should get free fees. Why not if it means their children go to the same schools as those on social welfare? There is a greater good to be served by universal provision. The budget is most regressive in that it encroaches on and undermines that principle.