Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC, has advised the committee that the €150 million is available and we would still be within the fiscal rules if we used it.

I wish to move on to what is something of a fake debate between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Let us leave the party political stuff aside, though, and deal with the policy issue, which is how best to give €200 million in tax cuts. We have learned the lessons of the past about the herd mentality or have we? Newspapers are holding conferences that allow these two to bat it out when there are people dying on our streets and hundreds of people are on hospital trolleys. Fake tears will be shed in sympathy for all of these issues while they continue to decide how best to give €200 million in tax cuts even though they know fine well that the pot is a certain amount of money.

The Irish Tax Institute, which published an excellent report in terms of producing statistics, will appear before us and tell us clearly that our marginal tax rates are a deterrent to employment. I would love to see whether there is any economic evidence to support that. The institute will tell us that the marginal tax rate kicks in too low and we are out of kilter with the rest of Europe. Presumably, it means the 49% rate and not the 52% rate when it refers to marginal tax. Am I correct in presuming that the marginal tax rate is the last tax rate?