DÁIL REACTION - FINE GAEL:THE ABSENCE of a policy to support a growth in jobs was a "fatal flaw'' in the Budget, Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan told the Dáil. "There is nothing there to get the economy growing again.''
Mr Noonan said the Budget was sparse in detail, and it was difficult to know what the full implications of some measures were.
He said €4 billion of the €6 billion in correction was in public expenditure cuts, while the remaining €2 billion was in taxation. Fine Gael had an experience, “in the olden days when Mr Haughey was king of the country’’, coming into government and finding the figures did not add up. More importantly, there were no policy decisions taken to underpin the expenditure cuts at that time.
He challenged Taoiseach Brian Cowen, who will address the Dáil on the Budget today, to state clearly what those policy decisions were. “I hope you are not faking it up,’’ he added.
Key projects had not been identified in cutbacks. “Is Metro North proceeding, for example?’’
Mr Noonan said the universal social charge was “still a bit of a mystery’’, adding the Minister had failed to nominate the rate at which it would apply in his speech.
The Minister had shown he did not have a high regard for carers, given the reductions in tax credits and allowances, said Mr Noonan.
“Carers have it tough, and it is one of the vulnerable areas that you should have protected and you did not protect it.”
While welcoming the decision to exempt the old age pensions in the social welfare cuts, Mr Noonan asked why widows had not been also included. “Why would you distinguish between old age pensions and widows’ pensions? What kind of social compass would suggest widows can afford the cut and old age pensioners cannot?’’
He asked why a Government would be “so socially blind’’ to include vulnerable people where the total tax take was so small anyway. Invalidity and blind pensions had also been hit.
Mr Noonan said the Budget was one of a “puppet Government’’ doing what it had been told to do by the IMF, the EU Commission and the European Central Bank.
“It is doing so, so that the State can draw down the bailout funds now that the county is insolvent.
“This budget, in an ironic way, is a fitting tribute to this failed administration.’’
The Government’s policies, he said, had wrecked the economy, destroyed the confidence of the people, put 450,000 people out of work, forced more than 100,000 adult children to emigrate, increased poverty and undermined any concept of social justice in Irish society.
The Government, said Mr Noonan, had not learned that it was not possible to cut and tax one’s way out of a recession.
“One can only grow out of a recession,’’ he said. “Consequently, their slash and burn policies were counter-productive and they failed to include measures to grow the economy and to protect and create jobs.’’
The Government, he added, had fallen into the same trap in the Budget.
