Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am the sponsor of amendment No. 3, which seeks a report on abolishing USC on the first €45,000 of the income of all workers. I made the point earlier on we are going into a general election and if I have the honour of going into government, that is exactly what I would do within the first two years as Minister for Finance. There would be no USC paid by average workers in this State ever again and all workers would benefit from the first €45,000 of their income being exempt from USC.

I will make a few points. Deputy McGrath and others have made the point Fine Gael promised to abolish the USC. It had nice posters, placards and photo opportunities about that, but it was not just Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil promised to abolish USC on the first €80,000 of income and Labour promised to abolish it on the first €72,000 of income in the run-up to the last general election. Fianna Fáil has held the finance Ministry for a number of years.

People think the Minister has done a great job by reducing it by one percentage point, giving that €59 to the person who earns €30,000. However, it is a far cry from what the former Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, campaigned for in 2016. I just wanted to put on the record that it was not just Fine Gael that made pledges in respect of USC.

I am conscious that we are in the mouth of an election. I have listened to what other speakers have said. I agree with a lot of what Deputy Ó Cuív has said. He came close to endorsing some of Sinn Féin's policies because our proposal to abolish USC on the first €45,000 would benefit everybody. There would be no step effect. Medical cards would also be made available to those individuals under our proposals, which was the second issue the Deputy talked about when discussing that step effect.

On the picture the Fine Gael Deputy has presented in the House today, there is no doubt but that the economy is doing well and that we have resources in abundance, particularly because of the Apple tax. I agree with Deputy Paul Murphy. We put down motion after motion on the Apple tax and the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, blatantly told us that, even if we got the money, we would not be able to keep it. Did he just make that up? Did he deliberately mislead the Dáil? Did he believe it at the time? Was he just embarrassed that the Commission had called him out on selective tax arrangements? It was not true. We see that is the case because nobody is even whispering it today. I agree with what Deputy Paul Murphy has said in that regard.

Listening to the previous speaker, you would not think that more than 500,000 people are in poverty in this State. You would not believe that 170,000 children are in poverty in this State. You would not think that we had the highest levels of homelessness, including child homelessness, ever seen in this State. That is after 14 years of Fine Gael government. The Fine Gael TD rightly pointed out that, with regard to immigration, that people have to be given an option. I agree with him on that. That is exactly what I believe this election is going to be about. It is going to be about hope. However, we also need to cut through the bull and look at the facts. Home ownership for the under-40s has collapsed since Fine Gael went into government.

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