Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a criminal way to put forward an exemption to this tax. I repeat that the troika did not insist on property tax. It wanted measures that would give an equal outcome. The Minister for Finance has the gall to promote a deferral scheme which will reduce poor people who cannot afford to pay to the equivalent of tax defaulters. They will have to pay half the amount or else face penalties of 4% per annum. Shame on the Government.

If the weekend's battle was clearly lost by both sides, with a gentle walk by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, ¤188 was used as the bargaining chip for those earning more than ¤100,000 per annum while the Government dug into people on the ground by wiping out the PRSI allowance of ¤127. That will hit every low income person in the country. Someone who earns ¤20,000 will have to pay out the same ¤264 per annum required from those earning ¤200,000. Where is the fairness in that? Am I missing something? I served with the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, in this House. If he was writing the budget instead of the four guys who clearly did not listen to their backbenchers, he would not have done that but he will be forced by the Whip to vote for it. How could he do it?

Let me return to the child benefit reduction of ¤10. What happened to the Labour Party's pre-election demands? Its members met the troika beforehand. They knew they did not have to promise hospitals here, roads there and everything else. They knew the cupboard was bare but the Government went around, as I said, in the greatest act of political delinquency since the foundation of the State-----