Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Today's budget is a better and fairer budget than any of the past five budgets introduced by the previous Fine Gael and Labour Party Government due to the influence of Fianna Fáil. The confidence and supply agreement we entered into with Fine Gael required us to facilitate budgets and ensure they agreed with the priorities outlined in the framework document. That agreement gave priority to investment in public services over tax cuts and required a 2:1 split in budgets to recognise the new priorities and enable us to start investing in our people again. This has been more than achieved in the budget. We have seen a 3:1 split in public services over tax cuts, which is welcome.

Fianna Fáil has achieved on many issues and the first issue was capital acquisitions tax. In recent weeks we read that the Government would increase the threshold for group A relatives where a parent wanted to give a gift to his or her child. The threshold has been increased for groups B and C due to contributions made by Fianna Fáil.

The second element that I am happy Fianna Fáil managed to improve is a reduction in deposit interest retention tax, DIRT. Many people, including the elderly, have a lot of money deposited in banks and applying DIRT would be unfair. I am glad that the Government has taken a step in the right direction.

I am unhappy with the first-time buyer's grant. A lot of first-time buyers will have watched the Budget Statement today but I knew exactly what would happen to the grant. Last week, I mentioned in this House that we heard whispers of a first-time buyer's grant worth €10,000. Today, we have heard that there will be a first-time buyer's grant of €20,000. That will put an extra €20,000 into the hands of auctioneers and developers.