Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It will borrow €2,500 per person and having borrowed that amount on behalf of the public sector, it will give each of them each back €800. That is three-card-trick economics at its best.

We can also note that 250 people in this country have assets of €76 billion while the combined net worth of half the population is €63 billion. Some of those 250 people with their billions in assets are not even paying the €200,000 exile tax that the Government imposed. It has not collected that tax, those people are not being pursued for it yet they have assets worth more than the assets of half of the population combined. The Government is saying that this is okay. Those people who are tax exiles are based all over Europe on this Europe Day. They live in Monte Carlo and places where the sun shines a lot more than it shines here. Yet, even the Government's tax policy with respect to the domiciliary levy is not being collected from those people who can well afford to pay it. When we consider we will borrow €2,500 per working person and then give public sector workers a pay increase, that represents three-card-trick economics at its finest. I ask on this Europe Day that the Government pursue those people who are not paying the €200,000 levy and to name and shame them.