Dan Boyle (Green Party)

Until we address that essential truth, much of the name calling and points scoring will be fundamentally dishonest in this debate.

I put it to Members that where we will be ending up in taxation and expenditure terms is probably where we should be anyway. Pain is being caused because the adjustment is happening too quickly and too much for many of our citizens. That is where the political debate needs to be. If we had not reduced taxes recklessly and if we had not increased expenditure in a naked attempt to buy political power, position and prestige, then we would not be in this position. We then have the banking mess on top of that.

Having said all that, it does not give my party any particular pleasure in agreeing to pass this Bill. However, it needs to be passed. The best achievement has been to get rid of some of the unwelcome signals that were coming out of the original draft of this Bill. These signals included the signal that those earning over €100,000 should not be charged an extra 3% in the universal social charge because it would affect the effective tax rate, the signal that there should not be a particular punitive rate of tax on bankers' bonuses, and the signal that the property tax reliefs in sections 22 and 23 could somehow be postponed into 2012. Those were unacceptable signals on top of a narrative where many of the citizens of this country were told that they had to bear a burden that others in our society were not expected to bear.

In leaving the Government, I am pleased that the Green Party challenged these particular provisions and we achieved amendments on them. There are others in the Lower House who have claimed this. I would like to put on the record that their involvement in those amendments was nil. I remember being involved in the negotiations on the formation of the Government and we expressed our concerns about the treatment of Independents supporting the previous Government. We did not want to be associated with that naked type of opportunism which accompanied the decisions of that Government. The strategy, as revealed at the time by Fianna Fáil, was that Independents did not effectively change anything but that decisions had already been made and the Independents were then given the opportunity to mouth off and say that they achieved those changes. The changes to property tax reliefs, to the taxation of bankers' bonuses and to impose a 3% charge for incomes in excess of €100,000 were effected by the Green Party, and I want to put them on the record today. I particularly resent the views of Members of the Lower House who are not known for their own adherence to the ideas of tax equity or even tax compliance claiming to be champions of the people in this area. On those grounds, we need to put aside the circus-like atmosphere that has attached to this Bill.

There are some welcome elements in the Bill, most notably the excising and extinguishing of tax reliefs. The formation of the Commission on Taxation was a Green Party demand in the programme for Government. Its insistence that its recommendations be adhered to was something the Green Party in Government called for, not only in this budget but in preceding budgets. It is again disappointing that it has taken the worsening of the crisis to implement many of these recommendations because they should have been implemented in 2008 and 2009. At least we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. There is reason to take particular pleasure in seeing amendments to property-based tax reliefs in section 22 and 23 which bring these reliefs to an end. There has been much lobbying on how individuals will be affected by these changes. Undoubtedly, some small-scale investors will feel the brunt of this particular change. However, the Green Party believes that this type of property tax relief was akin not so much to throwing petrol on a fire, more to setting fire to a refinery in terms of the effect it had in creating a property boom. We have had to live with the results of that since. The idea of a roll-over relief for properties already owned being added to new properties that were being created in a market for which there was no demand seems to epitomise everything that was wrong with the property-fuelled element of the Celtic tiger. That is why we should take some degree of pleasure from extinguishing those reliefs.

The other element of this Bill relates to the universal social charge and its effect. Undoubtedly, people on lower incomes are feeling this pinch more than others. However, there are good things to be said about it. The rationalisation of our levy system, whereby we have had an income levy, a health levy and PRSI as well as an insurance levy in the past, means that we need to get to a simplified system of one social insurance charge and one system of taxation. I would like to have seen that done in this budget. We have a half a horse approach on this and many other items in the Bill. We now have a USC, we now have PRSI and we now have income tax. It does not help the public mood, and if we were to have chosen reform, we should have done it in one bold leap.

One of the disappointments I have had as a party spokesperson in trying to influence budgets is the reluctance to embrace refundable tax credits, especially for the working poor. I would not lay the blame for this at the hands of the Minister, because I believe he is supportive of the idea. We proposed that this be introduced in the Bill at a cost of €100 per person, or a total cost of €60 million, increasing by the same amount over four years. In this way, a real benefit would be given to those at lower income levels. I am afraid that the people who opposed this the most are people in the Department of Finance.

I am disappointed with one thing the Minister said in respect of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010. He intimated that if the Green Party had given this Government another two to three weeks of artificial life, the measures in respect of that Act would have been brought into the Bill. I understand that at the meeting of all party spokespersons a few days ago, it was commonly accepted that the 150 amendments relating to the Act can be introduced in the finance (No.2) Bill, which can be passed before 1 April. I would like to see every political party commit to that. I welcome the fact that the Minister said he was surprised at the Green Party being seen in this position as the Green Party had pushed most strongly for the civil partnership legislation. This is something I did not hear from the relevant Minister at the time when he was finishing the debate on the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010. On where we are as a country, in terms of the social aspects and taking responsibility for the financial difficulties we are in, my party has made sure that what can be done is being done. Those who will follow in the incoming Government will at least have a better base on which to improve on the policy mistakes made before we entered government.