Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Finance if he supports the concept of equality budgeting; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Scottish Government provides an equality budget statement alongside each annual budget; his plans to provide an accompanying equality statement along with Budget 2013; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50247/12]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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With regard to budgetary matters, when focusing on the primary objectives of reducing the deficit and returning sustainability to the public finances, it has been of vital importance to the Government to spread the burden of the adjustments made in as fair and equitable a manner as possible, while also seeking to minimise their negative impact on economic growth. The Deputy might be aware that the Programme for Government does contain a clear commitment requiring all public bodies to take due note of equality and human rights in carrying out their functions. I would also remind the Deputy that the State and its bodies must, of course, comply with all provisions of equality legislation in the development and delivery of policies and services.

Furthermore, cabinet procedures require that proposals put to Government indicate clearly whether there is any impact of the proposal on, amongst other things, gender equality, persons experiencing or at risk of poverty or social exclusion and people with disabilities.

The Deputy might also be aware that a distributional analysis of proposed budget measures is performed each year based on income levels. I also feel that is important to highlight the progressive nature of the Irish taxation system when discussing these matters. Research by the ESRI has shown that, when analysing the impacts of policy changes since the beginning of the crisis, losses imposed by policy changes in tax and welfare have been greatest for those on the highest incomes, and smaller for those on low incomes. In other words, the measures have been progressive in nature.

The research also acknowledged the overall distributional pattern of Irish austerity measures as among the most progressive in 6 EU countries examined in a recent study by the European Commission.

It is also worth acknowledging that Ireland has been consistently assessed highly by the OECD for the progressivity of our taxation system. In the OECD rating system on the progressivity of taxation, where less than 100 is regressive and above 100 is progressive, most EU countries had a progressivity rate of between 120 and 140. Ireland, in comparison, had a progressivity rate of 182.