Dr. Seán Healy:

In overall tax. The Netherlands has a 9.1% higher total tax take; Norway takes 9.4% more, Denmark, 17.9% and New Zealand, 4.1%. Even the United Kingdom takes almost four percentage points higher than we do. Part of the issue in the Irish context is that in most of these countries employers and employees pay a much higher rate of social insurance, but there is also a much broader tax base in these countries than there is in Ireland. What we keep saying is that it is not possible to deliver a western European or EU15 average level of services and infrastructure on American levels of taxation. We need to take a serious look at that issue because most Irish people aspire to having western European levels of service and infrastructure, but if they want them, they must be paid for.

It is not the case, of course, that they all have to be paid from the public purse. We have to decide as a country, however, how we are going to deliver the various services and infrastructure and how they are going to be paid for.