Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

It does not get the money in. The idea that this adjustment can be done simply by way of increasing taxation rather than by increasing tax in addition to reducing expenditure is not honest. Let anyone look at it.

Let me make another point to Senator Cullinane, because his own party has put in a pre-butdget submission. We now have an independent fiscal council, comprising eminent economists who are not attached to Government. The Government will put this budget to the fiscal council and it will submit a view on it at some point in the next few months. I ask other Opposition parties, the Sinn Féin Party, the Fianna Fáil Party and others to do the same and then let us hear how well those numbers stack up from the independent fiscal council. How credible is it for politicians to claim credit for their own statistics? I will wait and see what the independent fiscal council has to say about our budget and I ask the Senator to put his party's budget to it.

The point has been made that very substantial reductions have been implemented. That is right and proper. I am not precluding further reductions in the future but we must be proportionate and fair in terms of what has happened since 2008. Also, on what has happened on the tax side since 2008, where very substantial reductions in real take home pay has occurred across the public sector, with the introduction of the universal social charge and the pension levy, the reduction in pay plus the increase in tax. When taken together, these add up to a very substantial reduction in take home pay.