Seanad debates

Friday, 19 December 2008

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Second Stage

 

11:00 am

Photo of Liam TwomeyLiam Twomey (Fine Gael)

Those debates should be held in these Houses. The Houses should return earlier than the end of January because that is what the public expect of us. They do not want us to have a show case day in the Mansion House. They want us to show the real leadership they are looking for now to deal with the domestic crisis in the public finances, the economic crisis which is caused by outside influences and the banking crisis, which has the potential to worsen. They want us to start making those changes to show that we are in touch with their concerns.

One of my fears is that if Ministers are seen to be out of touch there will be a sense that the entire political establishment is out of touch and that makes it more difficult to win over the people to our arguments. Many people do not see much difference between Opposition and Government. They see us all as politicians who are out of touch.

The Minister should examine how the measures in the Finance Bill affect him because people like to see how it affects us. I spoke in this Chamber about us paying ourselves a 2.5% increase in September, and there is talk of another 6% increase next August while at the same time we are taking away universal entitlement for those aged over 70, refusing to vaccinate young girls of 12 years of age against a form of cancer and making savage cuts in education. In some respects, some of the measures in this budget are a betrayal of older people.

The Minister should ask himself how these measures affect him. The Minister is quite privileged. He is very well paid. He has a Government car but the benefit in kind in terms of CO2 emissions does not apply to him. The Minister will say it is a Garda car but he should consider how these measures would affect him to show that he is in touch with the ordinary man and woman in the street. Ministers who live outside Dublin get significant allowances on second homes yet when it comes to everybody else the Minister regards that as something he must tax. We have very generous pensions, yet we are not doing much to help out people in that regard, although I appreciate people can now postpone buying their annuities

It is because of those issues that the hair cut of the Minister, Deputy Harney, being paid by FÁS upset people so much. They see us as being very privileged. We have many benefits which we refuse to give up, yet we are asking the people to do that. We are taxing them also, yet the Minister would not pay for a hair cut out of her own salary. That should be taken on board in these difficult times. The flaithiúlach good days of being a FÁS executive are gone. The Minister should start connecting with ordinary people in his approach to the budget and its effect on them. I hope to be able later to discuss other issues, such as health expenses and changes to the VHI.

I hope the Minister will take on board some of my opening remarks. We have not yet dealt with the issues of competitiveness and public sector reform. The contrast I mentioned between the NHS in the North and the HSE in the South shows how disconnected we are from the reality of being an open small economy and how it affects us. That is driving up salaries, which is why we have lost our competitiveness. Public sector reform has failed dramatically in recent years and it is having a detrimental effect on efforts to restore order to the public finances and in the provision of services through the civil and public service. A proper and honest debate is required on this issue. It is not a political attack on anybody but the reality of people's view on the matter. We must focus on that issue in the next year and be sensible about it.

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