Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes. An income of €120,000 would attract a surcharge of €6,000. This would produce a sum of €520 million in total. The Minister should keep doing what he is doing in respect of productivity gains, but we must find a mechanism that is easily understood and fair on the surface and in the mathematics and algebra.

The corporation tax is absolutely on the agenda because the effective rate of tax for corporations is not 12.5%, but 2%, 3% or 4% when one conducts double-tax planning in Luxembourg, etc. On a headline rate of 15% fixed for the next ten years, the Minister would get at least €500 million, and probably €700 million, and that is worth doing.

We hold the Presidency of the European Union for six months. All those who will visit, the euro-bureaucrats, the Heads of State, etc., will be protected and buffered from the pain and distress in households, the suicides, the nervous breakdowns, the inability to live normally, and those such as the Garda on €60,000 gross, of whom we heard in today's newspapers and on the radio, who has €109 net disposable income after a modest repayment on mortgage and other household utility expenses. They need to understand that rather than be driven on red carpets all around the place in shiny new cars and not know about how it translates into households. They need to know it during that six months.