Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

Amendments Nos. 3 and 10 deal specifically with the possibility of index-linking tax bands, exemption limits and tax credits. I will discuss the amendments before considering some of the other issues that have been raised during the debate. Amendment No. 3 proposes to correct the imbalance that has arisen from recent budgets. I approve more of amendment No. 10, which goes further by seeking to include the principle of index-linking in all future budgets. I was disappointed that the Minister did not accept this principle on Committee Stage. He would do well to examine how the principle exists satisfactorily in the budgetary regimes of other countries. Individual taxpayers should know, as a matter of fairness, that the value of the money they give to the State in a given year will not change much as a result of outside factors, such as inflation.

The Minister will probably repeat the figures he cited on Second and Committee Stages to suggest that the amount of money workers have in their pockets is greater than it was in 1997.

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