THE FATE of the Finance Bill rests in the hands of three Independents who have threatened to withdraw their support for the Government unless the legislation is changed.
Michael Lowry, Jackie Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath said yesterday that their support for the measure could not be relied on.
If all three vote against the Bill in the Dáil today it will suffer an embarrassing defeat as Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Sinn Féin are committed to opposing it. The outcome would be a general election with the Finance Bill being left to an incoming government to deal with.
Wicklow TD Joe Behan confirmed last night that he would vote in favour of the Bill in the national interest so that the State could adhere to the terms of the EU-IMF deal and continue to draw down the funding required to keep public services going.
Despite the attitude taken by Mr Lowry and his colleagues the main political parties continued to express confidence last night that the Bill would be passed.
The three Independents now threatening to vote against the Finance Bill all voted in favour of the Budget on December 7th to which the Bill gives effect.
Some changes to the universal social charge introduced in the Budget were announced yesterday by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan.
Later Mr Lowry said in a statement on behalf of himself and Mr Healy-Rae that the Minister had not gone far enough to meet their concerns.
The changes announced by the Minister involve a lower universal social charge for medical card holders who will now pay a maximum of 4 per cent.
Self-employed people will pay an extra surcharge of 3 per cent on income over €100,000 to recoup some of the lost revenue.
Mr Lowry had sought a complete exemption for medical card holders from the social charge. He also wanted retired civil servants to be exempt, had sought a reversal of the decision to bring forward the preliminary tax payment date by a month to September 30th and a provision to allow student fees to be offset against tax.
The Tipperary TD met Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Mr Lenihan yesterday morning and told him that he was finding it impossible to support a “crippled Government”.
He also criticised the Opposition parties for manoeuvring to ensure that the Dáil could pass the Finance Bill before the general election in the national interest while reserving the right to vote against it in their own interests.
If the three Independents do proceed with their threat to oppose the Bill some frantic last-minute manoeuvring is likely in the Dáil when the vote on the second stage of the legislation is called at noon today.
The support of 80 TDs can be relied on for the Bill. That is made up of 72 Fianna Fáil TDs, six Green Party TDs, Mary Harney and Joe Behan.
The Opposition has a certain 79 votes made up of Fine Gael 51; Labour 20; Sinn Féin five; and three Independents, Maureen O’Sullivan, Finian McGrath and Noel Grealish, who voted against the Budget.
That leaves the fate of the Bill in the hands of the three Independents who voted for the Budget but are now threatening to withdraw their support.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan conceded that the Bill was “even more important this year than in previous years” but he expressed the belief that there was still a majority for it.
