The Minister said the vast majority.

This is the Minister's first set of questions as Minister for Finance. He could make himself popular if he were to announce that the Government is going to scrap what is probably the most hated tax in history, the universal social charge that was introduced as a temporary charge. Will he announce its scrapping for all income under €100,000?

Does the Minister accept that the universal social charge was introduced effectively as a bank bailout tax? Always in answer to this question, it is stated that the USC combined two taxes, but in reality it was a massive increase in those taxes, generating a lot more revenue for the State. It was intended to be a temporary measure. It was an emergency measure in response to the crisis, to effectively give money to enable the bailout of the banks. It was intended to be done away with but we are stuck with it. Before…

Every year, we outline in our budget submission how this can be done. We increase the revenue the State raises and broaden our tax base by going after the major corporations that pay very little tax. We take the burden off ordinary workers – those who are earning less than €100,000 – and introduce a millionaire’s tax. We have a high-income social charge and increased rates of income tax. We ensure that corporations actually pay their taxes and increase the rate of corporation tax. It can be done. It is just a polit…

Hopefully, we will see.

It is a national scandal how children with scoliosis are treated in this country. They are left languishing on waiting lists, not for months but for years in some cases, with their conditions worsening. We have heard promise after promise about bringing the waiting lists down, going back to 2017, when we heard from then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, that there would be a maximum waiting list of four months. We heard it again from Children's Health Ireland, CHI, in 2022, with the same promise of a four-m…

The Minister cannot evade responsibility for this.

The Minister was warned in advance.

I pay tribute to Natasha O'Brien. She is an inspirational individual to millions of people across this country. She did not have to intervene to stop the homophobic abuse. Lots of people did not do so. Lots of people would just walk on, but she chose to do it. She was then subjected to a savage assault by someone who is supposed to be there to defend us, as a member of the Defence Forces. That injustice was then compounded by another massive injustice done by the so-called justice system, which refused to give a pr…

The far right is, unfortunately, on the march across Europe. It is on the verge of coming to power in France. We will see what has happened by the end of the week. We hope it is not in power. It will be the first far right government in France since the Vichy regime. The party of the RN has its origins in that regime. Members of the SS operated within France in support of the Nazi occupation. The question for all progressive people across Europe is how the far right can be stopped politically across Europe and much…

They are not really socialist governments.

He is a socialist in name only.

I do not know whether the Taoiseach watched the US presidential debate last week. It was a spectacle that in many ways is like a microcosm of the death agony or decline of US imperialism. On the one hand, there was a man who is a congenital liar who basically could not open his mouth without telling a lie, a sexual abuser and an authoritarian, hard-right politician who encouraged an insurrection after losing the last election and, on the other, facing off against him, was an extreme establishment politician of the …

I wish to raise the issue of investment in our sewerage infrastructure. I have raised this issue previously, but I encountered two new cases of it while campaigning in the local elections, one in Alderwood Grove and the other in Glenview Park, both of which are in Tallaght. I presume there are hundreds of such cases across the country whereby people have raw sewage coming out through manholes in their back gardens because the system is such that there is a private pipe from houses to the public sewerage line and, i…

I am sharing time. What we see here is an exercise in boiling the frog of neutrality, that is, just turning up the temperature, bit by bit, and hoping the people will not notice; removing any real content from the word "neutrality" while keeping simply the word; getting rid of the triple lock, which, as the Tánaiste said himself, is at the core of our neutrality; and signing up for more and more of these European militarisation projects of PESCO and the European Defence Agency. The report to the Tánaiste, which he …

I will tell the Tánaiste why it is misinformation. I quoted this previously to him and he did not respond.

Section 1 of the Defence (Amendment) Act 2006 clearly refers, in the context of the triple lock, to "an international force or body established, mandated, authorised, endorsed, supported, approved or otherwise sanctioned by a resolution of the Security Council or the General Assembly of the United Nations". It is simply not true that we have any veto. A regional peacekeeping force that was endorsed by a resolution of the General Assembly of the UN would meet the requirements for the triple lock. It is simply misinf…

You supported von der Leyen.

Developing underwater assets.

I am.