David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Hayes, to the House. There is no doubt that this is an anti-children, anti-family and anti-jobs budget. The Minister of State said in his contribution that all of what is contained in the budget is necessary. However, he failed to outline in detail exactly what is in the budget. I would like to put on record exactly what is in the budget, or at least that of which we are aware because we are still trawling through the detail.

The budget provides for an unfair property tax, which is not linked to ability to pay: a reduction of three months in jobseeker's benefit; reductions in the household benefits package; a reduction in child benefit of at least ¤10 per child; a trebling of prescription charges for medical card holders; reductions in the threshold for the drug payment scheme; the removal of the medical card for some senior citizens; tax on maternity benefit; cuts in the respite grant, which is a cruel cut; a reduction in the allocation of funding to the VECs and other higher education authorities; a reduction in payments to farmers, such as the suckler cow, REPS and early retirement payments; an increase in college registration fees this year, next year and the year after and much more.

This budget does nothing which requires high earners in this State to pay one extra cent in taxation. People who earn more than ¤100,000 per annum and more have not been asked to pay one extra cent in taxes.