People Before Profit TD tells Minister Noonan that Finance Bill will strengthen corporate welfare while welfare state is devastated

Speaking on the Finance Bill 2013 in the Dáil this afternoon, People Before Profit- ULAFinance spokesperson, Richard Boyd Barrett TD, told the Minister for Finance that the measures in the Finance Bill 2013 will further strengthen the welfare of Corporations in this country who have already avoided substantial amounts of tax on profits made while ordinary citizens and workers will continue to bear the brunt of austerity.

The measures in previous budgets have already wreaked devastation on individuals and families across the state and Budget 2014 and the Finance Bill 2013 will inflict even more hardship on people while corporate interests continue to enjoy generous tax breaks.

The concerns raised by Deputy Boyd Barrett include:

  • Tax breaks for high earners and “passive investors”.
  • More corporate tax breaks for Research and Development against a background of one of the lowest corporate tax regimes in Europe
  • Tax breaks for banks in NAMA on previous years losses set against future profits which is in effect a bail-out for the banks.
  • Instead of a Financial Transaction Tax there will be a reduction in tax liability for financial transactions in some areas such as property and financial speculation.

While these are examples of continuing corporate welfare, ordinary people will be hit by;

  • New ceilings on private health insurance will affect 90% of people with private insurance, not just the gold plated policies as Minister Noonan claimed on Budget day. This cut will drive people back into the public health system which is already falling apart.
  • Changes to othe ne parent tax credit will see at least a €1600 a year increase while the government claims there are no income tax increases in the budget.

Richard Boyd Barrett said in his Dáil speech, “The government is deploying 666, the number of the beast, against the sick and the vulnerable, and their policies will bring death, pestilence and apocalypse to our public Health service, which as hospital consultants have stated today, is under such immense pressure any further cuts will have utterly devastating consequences.

“The fantastical claim of the exit from the bail-out is not to be believed when the Troika confirmed last week that we will be leaving the Troika frying pan and entering the fire of the Fiscal treaty which will still require the same terms as the IMF programme, with a €9 billion interest payment due next year which is the same as the Education budget!

Claims about growth and employment are bogus when unemployment figures are scrutinised. The government is quite simply massaging the figures with the fall in the live register attributable to the 40,000 leaving the country each year in addition to the numbers on bogus jobs schemes such as Jobsbridge and Jobsplus , which are giving companies free labour and creating a pool of slave labour with people working for less than the minimum wage.

It is disgraceful that the Labour party are participating in the creation of a cheap pool of labour for the benefit of multi-nationals”.