Phil Prendergast (Labour)

The harmonised index of consumer prices, HICP, is a more accurate measure of the cost of living and it is used by the EU and is preferred by Colm McCarthy. The HICP is 2.8% year on year. The Minister has cut 1.8% from welfare payments by abolishing the Christmas bonus. The reduced rental allowances of €15 to €20 euro per week, increased fuel costs and new medicine charges will more than wipe out this 1% differential. Rather than tax the wealthy, the Minister chose to push more children into poverty and worsen the situation for those who are already impoverished.

The Minister said that the cuts will save the Department of Social and Family Affairs €760 million next year. Around the same amount would be raised by abolishing property reliefs and reforming pension relief schemes. It is well worth noting that the annex to the budget shows a single person in the private sector earning over €250,000 will experience no change in his or her income as a result of the budget. I find that amazing. Compare that with a 21 year old who is unemployed who will lose more than €5,000 a year. Such a person will take a 50% cut while Ministers will take a 5% cut.

The Ministers, Deputies Hanafin and Brian Lenihan, argued that deflation meant the welfare cuts were, in the words of the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, "not severe". If so, why did this logic not apply to high earners? I would like the Minister to answer that question. A cut in high earners' salaries means a cut in money invested on the stock market and not in the economy.

The budget is bad for business, as it provides for taking money out of shop tills with the knock-on effect on manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, service providers and I could continue. That makes stocks and shares an even more lucrative option because there will not be any attractive investment opportunities in Irish business with there being €4 billion less in circulation. This will also lead to more unemployment and, therefore, more misery, poverty, suicide - I go so far as to say that and of which we have had an indication - ill health and general social unrest, of which we had a demonstration, including as late as this evening. That does not matter to the Government because this Bill is part of a broader strategy to deflate the economy at the expense of ordinary and vulnerable people while benefiting the wealthy friends and benefactors.

I believe this is what really led to Deputy Gogarty's intemperate outburst in the Dáil last week. It is the fact that he knows full well that this budget in unconscionable, immoral and unprecedented in its cynicism. This is only a personal view, but having regard to the Deputy's outburst, it struck me that his fury was not really motivated by anything my colleague, Deputy Stagg, had said. It looked as if he was hating himself for being part of this. I cannot shake the impression that Deputy Gogarty is so uncomfortable with the budget that what we saw was an overspill of the struggle he was having with his conscience. I believe that to be the case. I hope that at least he and every Oireachtas Member is struggling with his or her conscience at present.

Blind people, disabled people, ill pensioners and young people - with whom Deputy Gogarty might be assumed to have an affinity - are all victimised in this Bill. One might ask the reason for that. It is because senior Ministers want to protect the donors that finance Fianna Fáil election campaigns. The money that pays for the market research and the focus groups helps Fianna Fáil return TDs to the Dáil and it distorts our democracy. The Green Party members know this. They have been speaking in outraged tones about it for years, but now they are supporting a budget that is designed entirely around their coalition partner's greed for power, and it will not be the first if the Government lasts for the next 12 months. This Bill is the budget boot boy.

The finance Bill is a Fianna Fáil love letter to the wealthy interests who finance the party. It is the letter of assurance from Ministers to the influential people from whom they expect to get jobs when they leave politics, and they all seem to get very good jobs.