Labour's Joan Burton condemns Budget as shameful, mean-spirited, small-minded

REACTION: Budget 2003 is "shameful, socially irresponsible, mean-spirited and small-minded", the Labour Party's new finance spokeswoman, Ms Joan Burton, claimed in the Dáil.

The "ordinary taxpayers" were the people who would pay, she said. "It is a budget of broken promises and hopes betrayed."

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, had betrayed "all the most vulnerable groups in society", she said, adding that there had never been a budget with so little in it to meet the needs of people on the margins of society.

"Stallions and their owners can sleep easy tonight" because they had not been touched by the Budget, and people on community employment schemes should learn a lesson from the bloodstock industry in how to lobby Government.

The Minister had given something like €186 million in personal tax changes, but had taken back €83 million in measures like the tax to benefits-in-kind and PRSI.

He had taken back an additional €52 million in stamp duty on cheques and credit cards.

"That is €135 million, before increases in cigarettes, drink and petrol charges. He has increased the standard rate of VAT from 12.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent."

She said there had been selective leaks for weeks that "tax shelters would take a decisive hit". It did not happen. "Some €10 million would be saved by closing tax loopholes. "We're terribly impressed," she said sarcastically.

The Dublin West TD also hit out at the reduction in the corporate tax rate to 12.5 per cent.

"The Minister is in effect giving a present of €305 million to some of the richest companies in Ireland." The increase in child benefit was almost exactly a quarter of what the Government promised. People on the lowest level of social welfare would get 30 cent a week above his own projected rate of inflation.

"Higher inflation next year will consume €5.70 of the €6 increase in the lower social welfare payments," she said.

The Minister's Budget was "devoid of compassion, without ambition and lacking in courage".

It was a "slap in the face for families, who work hard and play by the rules".

The Government was formed 182 days ago, she said, and that half-year was one of "political betrayal, dishonesty, incompetence, and broken promises".

The Minister had effectively brought in three budgets "aimed at making families pay for the mess the Minister has created".

The three-part saga was a mini-budget of cuts when the Government was first formed, one of the most draconian book of Estimates in years, and the Budget "the latest threadbare offering".

All three attacked families and made the future look bleaker. Ms Burton said that the Minister had "well lost" the "swagger of recent years". Mr McCreevy was "subdued" and "slightly bewildered".

She said it all went wrong because "his management was wrong. His policies were wrong. His forecasts were wrong. His mean-spirited philosophy is wrong. And above all his priorities are wrong". She said Mr McCreevy "would like us to believe we are in a budgetary mess solely because there are international difficulties".

But it was time "to stop blaming the external factors. It's time to start recognising that our difficulties have been greatly compounded by his own misguided management".