Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, and prior to her the other Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, to the Chamber.

This week marks the first 100 days of the Government which was elected by the people with an unprecedented majority to lead in a time of crisis and to deliver change. However, the Finance Bill comprises just 14 pages, fails to deliver change and hope and is remarkable not by what it includes but by what it fails to include. In the statement of common purpose in the programme for Government, the governing parties stated "both our parties are committed to protecting the vulnerable and to burden-sharing on an equitable basis". We can judge this commitment to protecting the vulnerable and equitable burden sharing by the contents of the Bill.

Senators have mentioned the pension levy. While I want to avoid repetition, the matter deserves further emphasis. The central tenet of the Bill and the jobs initiative is the imposition of a 0.6% levy on pension funds for the next four years. It is estimated that the Government will raise €470 million per year via the levy. However, the pension levy is not about "burden-sharing on an equitable basis". It is deeply inequitable. It excludes the approved retirement funds, ARFs, used by many high earners to invest in their pensions and makes no differentiation between the pensions held by ordinary workers and those of high earners.

Sinn Féin has long advocated the standardisation of pension tax reliefs at the lower rate. Not only would this remove an unjustifiable inequity in the current system, it would generate significant revenue for the State to invest in economic recovery. Based on figures from a 2009 ESRI report on pensions, standardising pension tax reliefs would generate an additional €1.1 billion, of which €616 million would come from the top 10% of earners. The same report estimated that, in the same year, 82% of all pension tax relief went to the top 20% of income earners, which demonstrates the grossly unequal nature of this relief and the need for its reform. The Finance Bill is a lost opportunity to deliver an equitable approach to pensions. As Senator Bradford stated, we need a debate on pensions.

The Government claims it will use the pension levy to fund the jobs initiative, but that initiative can be said to be too little, too late. It fails to measure up to the pre-election promises of the Government parties. For example, it is a far cry from Fine Gael's election promise to create 100,000 jobs over five years and 45,000 new employment and training places to target youth unemployment. It is also a far cry from the strategic investment bank and the 60,000 training and employment places promised by the Labour Party.

For a Government obsessed with bond market confidence, it fails to recognise people's loss of confidence. A sizeable section of our community has little or no faith or confidence in the Government's actions. As has been highlighted, we learned this week of a 25% increase in the number of people who moved to live in Britain last year. Some 13,920 people moved to Britain last year. The overwhelming majority were aged between 18 and 34 years. Young, educated and skilled people are leaving the State in their droves, yet they are the very people we need to drive economic recovery. We have heard that our greatest export market is Britain. The figures show that our greatest exports are our young people. Behind these bald statistics are their families, friends and communities which are losing a generation of young people owing to an economic crisis created in bankers' boardrooms. The jobs initiative has fallen short of what is required to create jobs for the young people concerned and the Government is, once again, falling back on the safety valve of emigration.

We believe and international experience has demonstrated that economic growth will be only generated by investment in a major stimulus package. For this reason we should revert to the jobs fund if we are to properly invest in job creation measures. A €2.9 billion stimulus package in the next 12 months would not alone be affordable but is urgently needed if we are to save and create badly needed jobs and assist small and medium-sized businesses and hard-pressed families. In this regard, Sinn Féin would use €2 billion from the National Pensions Reserve Fund to fast-track labour intensive infrastructural projects to create jobs. We would also inject a further €500 million, in the form of a family stimulus package funded from additional tax revenue, into the economy. The aim of this package of measures would be to support working families and those on social welfare to boost consumer spending, the lack of which is crippling the domestic economy. The abolition of the universal social charge would release a further €400 million of spending power back into the domestic economy. Again, this type of radical and progressive economic policy change is missing from the Bill and represents another opportunity lost.

Sinn Féin welcomes the reduction to 9% in the rate of VAT for tourism related goods and services, which is a welcome boost for the tourism sector. However, any potential gain must be viewed against the proposal to increase the top rate of VAT to 23%, a regressive tax measure which will have a crippling effect on Border economies, including my own county of Cavan. We should be capitalising on opportunities to ensure the harmonisation of tax policy.

We are now 100 days into the term of office of the new Government and this finance Bill falls short of what is required. Measures such as the pension levy will not help us in any way. Sinn Féin, therefore, will not be supporting the Bill.