Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Good man. I am very grateful. I hope to see the fruits of that on budget day. By using the National Pensions Reserve Fund, the European Investment Bank and private pension funds we would create more than 150,000 jobs. That is not an easy choice but it is the right one.

It is not, despite the Government's claims, the hard thing to do to tax the lower and middle income earners to balance the books or to impose flat taxes, such as property and water taxes, on struggling working families. What would be the harder and right approach would be to introduce a higher third rate of tax on high earners and to introduce a wealth tax where the assets of the very wealthy are taxed.

Last night at a meeting of the community and voluntary sector in Galway, which has arranged a lobby, I was asked to bring a message to the Seanad today because the sector to which I referred is at breaking point owing to the cuts that have been introduced. The representatives showed a graph from the EU-SILC report which indicates that, through the austerity of recent years, those on higher incomes have made more money and are better off than those on lower incomes, whereas more of the burden has been piled on to the lower income families. I suggest that report be taken on board because those groups are finding it very difficult.

By cutting rather than investing and by taxing those who are struggling to pay, the Government is preventing economic growth by killing off domestic demand in the economy. People have less money in their pockets and less confidence to spend it. I note that the United Nations Committee on Trade and Development and the IMF have recently issued reports stating that austerity is not working.

I ask the Minister of State to take on board the suggestions that have been made by ourselves and others in this sphere. The suggestions are made in good faith in order that the community and voluntary sector and all the people in society who cannot afford to take more of the burden will not be lumbered with it. I hope he will take the suggestions on board in the pre-budget deliberations.