Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I find his contribution interesting. My problem with the Fine Gael-led Government's view on the world is that it wants to be a Government not for all of the people but for about 40% or 50% of the people. There is this idea it wants to convince people they are over-taxed and that, as the Minister of State said in his statement, public services are in need of reform, that we spend €60 billion on public services and this is too much. That kind of rhetoric worries me. The very right-wing instincts of the people who are in leadership positions in the Government concern me, in particular the idea of shrinking the State, convincing people to be individualistic and the talk of the tax burden.

There is also the absolute cod of a rainy day fund, which I think was introduced into the Government's language by Fianna Fáil, which was trying to regain some credibility when it comes to economic language, seeing that it drove the country off a cliff, and so the Government has adopted it as a policy position. Let us not forget that I and my party were in government with the Minister of State and his party for five years, so we cannot be accused of not taking sensible or prudent economic decisions. However, this one is genuinely a cod. It is a political lie, in my view, because, at a time when we are still wounded as a nation from the last ten years, for the record 10,000 people on the homeless list, including 3,500 children, and for people in need of mental health services, disability services, drug treatment programmes and so on, it is raining. For people in the public services who are still hoping for pay restoration and those who are suffering from lack of motivation and morale in the teaching profession, given we now have an issue with teacher supply and cannot even get people to mark the exams, it is raining. I suggest to the Minister of State and the Government that this notion of a rainy day fund is a complete and utter cod. It is a political nonsense and is done purely to give a sense of prudence and sensible economic management, but it is not the action of a Government that cares for the entirety of the people.

I want to speak about some of the obsessions the Minister of State and his Government seem to have in regard to tax cuts. In the last budget the Government decided to throw away €200 million worth of tax for no good reason, except to again convince the vast bulk of Irish people they are over-taxed when, in fact, they are not. That €200 million could have gone a long way to addressing some of the issues I have already spoken about. Again, the Minister of State speaks endlessly about the USC. I listened to Deputy Micheál Martin on radio last weekend speaking about all the services that need to be addressed, and then he also said we need to deal with USC. Why is it not the Government's obsession to end homelessness, illiteracy, poverty or inequality rather than ending the USC?