Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

Some of the recent debate in the Lower House on Deputy Varadkar's comments illustrates the closeness in economic policy of the two major parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. It is clear that there are those within the Fine Gael Party who are not trying to get into government and who support Government policy. This amplifies the fact that the two parties have a similar economic policy, especially on the banking system. The Minister of State sought to drag in the previous speaker because in reality his proposals are very similar.

We recognise the country's finances are in crisis. What we needed last December was a budget that recognised this fact and would start to raise the necessary revenue to address the problem. Instead, a lightweight budget was announced, followed by a lightweight finance Bill. The Government's decision to cut us out of recession rather than raise revenue and stimulate the economy is not working and will simply not work. This should have been seen as an opportunity to ensure fairness in the taxation system and address some of the anomalies which cost the State billions of euro each year.

The finance Bill gives the Government legislative power to manage the State's finances. It implements budget decisions and introduces new measures aimed at tackling the country's budget deficit. In the past week Sinn Féin has revealed that what is not included in the Bill is just as important, if not more so. Through my party colleague, Deputy Morgan, we revealed the news in the Dáil that within three months of its appointment and before work properly began, the members of the board of NAMA had received pay increases. This flies in the face of everything the Government has stated about the State's finances. Some 12 days after the announcement of the harshest budget witnessed in decades, a budget the Government maintained we needed urgently, NAMA approached the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, to seek vast pay increases, with which it was rewarded. Public servants had their pay cut by 5% but the chairperson of NAMA was granted an increase of 70% at the same time. The real question is how are we to take the Bill seriously when such measures are taken by the Government behind closed doors. That is one example of many in which we can see double standards.

On Committee Stage I propose to submit several amendments to ensure a fairer finance Bill. One such measure would require the Government to put all decisions about remuneration in NAMA, which comes from taxpayers' pockets as in the case of all its other financial dealings, before the Houses of the Oireachtas. We call on the Government to reverse the pay increases immediately. It is clear that this was not the criterion under which members of the board were hired. The line we have been hearing from spin doctors within the Government is that they have suddenly realised the people concerned have a great deal more work to do, but it simply does not wash. We are all aware of NAMA's vast workload, but a 70% pay increase for the chairperson and increases for others working part-time are untenable at a time when the Government is slashing frontline services and attacking the pay of some of the lowest paid workers in the public sector.

I intend to submit amendments to have the Government ringfence moneys raised by way of the new VAT measure inflicted on the State by the European Union. They would require this money to be directed towards the local government fund, with an instruction that it be used to help local authorities to reduce service charges and rates. It is clear the Government's taxation policy is crazy. Throughout the boom years it was totally dependent on consumption taxes such as stamp duty and VAT receipts. The Official Report of the Dáil shows that time and again we raised this issue with the Minister for Finance and other Ministers and highlighted the need to move away from these fair weather taxes. At the time Fianna Fáil did not listen and poured extra fuel on the fire in what was already an overheating economy. This is related to my first point because Fine Gael argued likewise. The over-dependence on consumption taxes was unsustainable because they were indirect taxes and unreliable in generating an income stream for the Exchequer on a long-term basis. As a consequence, when the economy-----