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Deputy Kevin Humphreys:   Could I have a little bit of order, please? Deputy Boyd Barrett made a valiant contribution on Financial Resolutions Nos. 10 and 11.
Deputy Alex White: Hear, hear.
Deputy Kevin Humphreys: It is unfortunate that small savings cannot be separated from the 3% increase, but this may be an education for Sinn Féin. A wealth tax is about taxing assets. The taxes under Financial Resolutions Nos. 10 and 11 will accrue €64 million. Deputy Boyd Barrett has a sense of reality; we need money, and the way to get it is to tax assets in banks. However, Sinn Féin obviously does not believe in a wealth tax, as it bucks when it must take difficult decisions. The motions that we are debating are truly progressive.
Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: The Fine Gael Deputies are delighted. Look at them. They are like Cheshire cats.
An Ceann Comhairle: Deputy, please.
Deputy Kevin Humphreys: Sinn Féin had its opportunity and blew it.
An Ceann Comhairle: I ask Deputy Humphreys to proceed, please.
Deputy Jonathan O'Brien: Labour blew it too.
Deputy Kevin Humphreys: These are progressive wealth taxes. Capital gains tax is being increased. The capital acquisitions tax thresholds are being reduced, accruing €15 million. These are true wealth taxes. They are what the Labour Party has fought for and won since the time when Deputy Broughan was one of our members and was prepared to fight.
Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: He is still a member.
Deputy Thomas P. Broughan: Yes.
Deputy Kevin Humphreys: He is not a member of the parliamentary party.
Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: No, but he is a member of the real Labour Party.
An Ceann Comhairle: Will Deputy Humphreys please proceed without interruption?
Deputy Kevin Humphreys: I will support these resolutions and stay within the Labour Party to ensure that we introduce good, progressive wealth taxes such as these. I am proud to vote for the motions.
Deputy Arthur Spring: Anyone who examines this budget objectively will agree that those who have most will carry most in terms of these four motions.
Deputies: Hear, hear.
Deputy Arthur Spring: No Deputy would disagree with their provisions. We could have imposed higher taxes on middle or lower income earners. Some Members on that side of the House would advocate further cuts instead of these taxes.
I am delighted that we are having a mature debate, as this House goes. In the years to come, the country's sovereignty will have been regained. I make no bones about the fact that difficult decisions have been made. Voting for this budget will not grant me or my colleagues who stand beside me a bonus. We will make no monetary or political gain. The populist movement stands inside the Opposition parties.
Deputy Jerry Buttimer: Hear, hear.
Deputy Arthur Spring: My parliamentary question showed that the Opposition parties did nothing to cost their budget proposals.
Deputy Jonathan O'Brien: That is not true.
Deputy Brian Stanley: Does Deputy Spring not believe the Department of Finance?
Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Move it on.
Deputy Arthur Spring: It is as simple as this, and we pointed it out to the Opposition. One can build something - for example, a house - block by block. However, Sinn Féin is pouring cement on it.
Deputy Dessie Ellis: Does the Deputy not believe the Department of Finance?
Deputy Brian Stanley: Is the Department wrong?
Deputy Arthur Spring: There is no foundation. With all deference to every Deputy, one cannot cost parts-----
An Ceann Comhairle: Would the Deputies mind speaking through the Chair? Will they please settle down? Other Members wish to speak.
Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Government Deputies have been screaming and shouting all night long. The Ceann Comhairle is a bit late calling everyone to order now.
An Ceann Comhairle: I am in the Chair now and I do not know what went on before I arrived. I am present now and I will make certain that people have the right to speak.
Deputy Arthur Spring: I am sorry, but I have not shouted at anyone-----
Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Those Deputies have been like a choir. A very bad choir, at that.
Deputy Arthur Spring: -----and I have no intention of doing so or of talking anyone down. That is not how I operate.
Deputy Brian Stanley: Is Deputy Spring accusing the officials of the Department of Finance?
Deputy Arthur Spring: However, I will highlight the fact that one cannot submit or cost part of a budget.
Deputy Jonathan O'Brien: The Government would not cost the other bit.
Deputy Arthur Spring: Some Deputies have made proposals amounting to €1 billion while others have claimed they would tell the IMF to go home and that we did not need money.
Deputy Micheál Martin: The Labour Party did.
Deputy Arthur Spring: The totality of the argument is either founded or unfounded.
Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Frankfurt's way.
An Ceann Comhairle: I will not ask the Deputy again. I am serious. I am cutting this out. People are entitled to have their say and others are waiting to speak. Deputy Spring, please proceed without interruption.
Deputy Arthur Spring: Some people claim there is an easy way to remove money from an economy. One statistic that Deputies should know is that, two years ago, approximately 30% of our entire debt-to-GDP ratio was accounted for by banking debts. We could be compared with Zimbabwe, not Sweden or the other developing Nordic countries to which we aspire. We have reduced that figure to less than one third of what it was.
We are 80% of the way through this process. It is difficult and it is unpopular on our side. If the Opposition has a word of wisdom for the House, we would like to hear it and for the media to examine it in its totality. The fraudsters who are putting bad budgetary policies and submissions together need to be exposed for what they are.
These resolutions are good measures and every Deputy should endorse them. Those in society with the most are being asked to pay the most.
Deputy Dessie Ellis: They are not.
Deputy Joe Higgins: The protesting Labour Deputies duly doth protest too much entirely tonight. They have come in a cohort to drown out, in reality, not so much their dissident colleagues, as they have just been trying to do, but the weakness of their fundamental economic and political position.
An Ceann Comhairle: On the motion, please.
Deputy Joe Higgins: The Labour Deputies have been in a hapless position since March 2011, when they took the fatal decision that they would continue the disastrous strategy of Fianna Fáil to bail out-----
Deputy Eric Byrne: We only lost three Deputies. The Socialist Party lost 50% of its Deputies.
Deputy Emmet Stagg: And not for good reasons.
Deputy Gerald Nash: Does Deputy Higgins have the full support of his parliamentary party?
Deputy Dessie Ellis: There will be a few more bailouts yet.
Deputy Joe Higgins: -----bondholders and bankers at the expense of the working people they were supposed to represent, and they have defended the indefensible since then.
An Ceann Comhairle: Will the Deputy please speak on the motions before the House? That is what the debate is about.
Deputy Ruairí Quinn: He never has before. Why would he start now?
A Deputy: He will get there.
Deputy Joe Higgins: The Tánaiste lectured the House on procedure, etc. He came up with a mishmash of three or four motions-----
Deputy Emmet Stagg: Deputy Higgins's Whip agreed to it.
Deputy Micheál Martin: Will Deputy Stagg stop acting the bully?
Deputy Jerry Buttimer: Do you hear the fella talking?
Deputy Micheál Martin: Since I have entered the Chamber, Deputy Stagg has been shouting at everyone.
Deputy Emmet Stagg: Deputy Martin is shouting at me now. I am not a bit terrified of Fianna Fáil.
Deputy Micheál Martin: I know, but this is Parliament.
An Ceann Comhairle: Excuse me. Will Deputies please allow Deputy Higgins-----
Deputy Micheál Martin: Deputy Stagg attacked Deputy Broughan.
An Ceann Comhairle: Deputy Martin, will you please respect the Chair?
Deputy Micheál Martin: I am sorry, and I do, but what is going on? It is outrageous.
An Ceann Comhairle: Will Deputy Higgins please proceed and speak on the motions before the House?
Deputy Emmet Stagg: I am not a bit terrified of Fianna Fáil.
Deputy Micheál Martin: The Deputy is terrified of Labour's own.
Deputy Joe Higgins: We have heard complaints from Deputies all night about motions, some of which they agree with and some of which they disagree with, being taken in one vote. It is quite ridiculous. The Tánaiste lectured the House and the cacophony on my right supported him-----
Deputy Eric Byrne: Deputy Higgins stated that already. He is repeating himself.
An Ceann Comhairle: Deputies, please.
Deputy Joe Higgins: -----in regard to some of the alternative and solidly evidenced proposals that we on the left tabled. The Deputies should not demean or downgrade the information that is given through parliamentary questions from the Department of Finance, which is what was done tonight. For example, when I submitted a question to the Minister for Finance asking for a certain schema to be worked out in respect of three higher tax bands for those earning between €100,000 and €200,000, he replied that it would yield €1.1 billion extra in income taxes. The United Left Alliance's submission went further and wider and came up with €2.5 billion. What was missing was any will whatsoever by this Government to tax the very wealthy as opposed to hitting the majority of ordinary working class people and the poor, as it has done again in spades in this budget, which is quite shameful.
Deputy Kevin Humphreys: On a point of order-----
An Ceann Comhairle: What is your point of order?
Deputy Kevin Humphreys: Are we taking statements on the budget?
An Ceann Comhairle: No. Will the Deputy please resume his seat? I will look after the Chair if he will just stay quiet and allow me to get on with business.
Deputy Joan Collins: Deputy Kevin Humphreys did the same.
An Ceann Comhairle: I remind Deputy Higgins again to speak on the motions and to have respect for other Deputies who are waiting to contribute. This debate will conclude at 10.48 p.m.
Deputy Gerald Nash: Is this last year's speech?
An Ceann Comhairle: Deputy Higgins should please speak on the motions before the House, not make a Second Stage speech.
Deputy Joe Higgins: If I were Deputy Humphreys I would not have the audacity to make that point, as he spent his contribution simply abusing other Members of the Dáil, including his dissident colleagues. He has some neck.
Deputy Eric Byrne: It does not bother Deputy Broughan.
Deputy Joe Higgins: In case Deputy Humphreys has not done so, he should read the work of Connolly and Larkin, the founders of his party. He will see that he is dealing with-----
Deputy Michael McCarthy: Speak on the motion, for God's sake.
An Ceann Comhairle: Has Deputy Higgins finished his contribution? I want to call on Deputy Donohoe.
Deputy Emmet Stagg: Deputy Higgins reads Trotsky.
(Interruptions).
Deputy Joe Higgins: -----a sick financial market system whereby-----
Deputy Michael McCarthy: The Deputy was expelled from the Labour Party with his carry-on.
(Interruptions).
Deputy Joe Higgins: -----we currently have €3 trillion in accumulated profits which they refuse to invest on a Europe-wide basis in jobs and services.
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