Below is a response from my colleague Derek Nolan TD to an Irish Times piece on the recent Budget:
"Sir, – The characterisation by columnist Fintan O’Toole of the recent budget as “the fourth regressive budget in a row” simply does not stand up to scrutiny (“The Irish Water debacle: why the State is heading towards being ungovernable”, Opinion & Analysis, November 5th) .
While the default setting of armchair generals like Fintan O’Toole is to criticise and denigrate everything that this Government, and particularly the Labour Party does, surely the general public has a right to expect a contribution that is somewhat more balanced and more factual than what I read.
Mr O’Toole claims that the combined impact of the tax and welfare measures and of water charges would reduce the income of the lowest income households by 1 per cent. Given that the Government has not yet completed the process of determining the precise details around charging for water – how much households will end up paying, how much they will receive in allowances, how it will be dealt with in terms of tax relief, what kind of supports they can expect from the Department of Social Protection, etc – I can only conclude that Mr O’Toole is in possession of some kind of crystal ball and that he knows more about the final outcome of these deliberations than any of the Government Ministers dealing with the matter!
Leaving that to one side, it seems to have conveniently escaped Mr O’Toole’s attention that as a result of this budget, the tax burden on high-earners has been increased, while the burden on lower earners has been reduced!
The facts are that as a result of Budget 2015: the 1 per cent of all earners on over €200,000 will account for 21 per cent of all taxes paid in 2015. This is up from 19 per cent in 2014. The 6 per cent of all earners on over €100,000 will account for 44 per cent of all taxes paid in 2015. This is up from 42 per cent in 2014. The 76 per cent of all earners on under €50,000 will account for 20 per cent of all taxes paid in 2015. This is down from 21 per cent in 2014. The benefit of decreasing income tax for high earners is capped at €70,000. A further 80,000 low-paid workers will be exempt from the universal social charge.
It also must have escaped his notice that as part of Budget 2015, there was a massive increase in investment in social housing. Alan Kelly announced that we would be investing €800 million in housing, so that we can begin delivering 7,500 family homes in 2015 and a total of 40,000 family homes in the coming years – the single biggest social housing announcement in the history of the State.
The social impact of initiatives like this may not be captured by the analytical models that think tanks, research groups and commentators have come to rely on, but in the real world they have a real impact on actual families.
In addition, spending on homelessness will increase by 20 per cent to €55 million, something that as a Labour TD I would warmly welcome.
Ahead of the budget, we said that we would take steps to reduce the pressure on working families, and to that end, we increased child benefit and introduced the new back-to-work family dividend, a scheme that will provide additional financial support to help jobseekers with families return to work. On top of that, all long-term welfare recipients will receive a Christmas bonus of 25 per cent of their weekly payment in light of the costs associated with this period.
While it may not chime with his consistently critical attitude to Labour, Mr O’Toole should out of fairness acknowledge these positive and progressive measures in a budget that took this country another step along the road to both economic and social recovery. – Yours, etc,
DEREK NOLAN, TD
Leinster House,
Dublin 2."
