Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is not the kind of discussion I thought we would have today, but it is useful and something we should probably take elsewhere. The discussion will continue because it is a necessary debate to have. We want to achieve the same things as Deputy Boyd Barrett, but we want to start from a different departure point. That would be fair to say. I never like to describe tax as a burden. That is the language of the right, if I can use that term. Tax is not a burden. It is required to contribute to the kind of public services we aspire to have in this country. That is what the universal social charge system does. It is the most progressive form of taxation ever introduced in this country and the vast bulk of lower-paid workers do not pay any USC whatsoever. They also pay very low levels of PRSI and personal tax.

I appeal to Deputy Boyd Barrett not to get into the argument about tax cuts and how that can contribute to rising incomes. We contribute to rising incomes by, for example, empowering our collective bargaining system to ensure workers get a greater share of the pie in terms of their productivity. We know, and the Deputy knows, that has been falling considerably year-on-year since the 1970s because of the kind of economic system that has been prevalent across the world. The USC is, by definition, a very progressive tax system and we ought to be very careful about how we approach any adjustments we make to it.

The best way of ensuring that working people have a decent standard of living is by providing universal basic public services to a very high standard. We know that in this country general levels of Government expenditure on public investment, pre-pandemic, were low and need to improve. We do that by ensuring we have a tax base that can efficiently and productively resource those services. Let us not get into the business of narrowing our tax base now.