Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The Labour Party wants to go beyond what we have done. It wants a wealth tax. Deputy Rabbitte stated in The Irish Times on 24 February 2003: "You can't simply say we will impose what are still pretty hefty taxes on work and no taxes on wealth".

A single person on the average industrial wage will pay just 16% of his or her income in income tax next year compared to 28% when the parties opposite were last in Government. If Deputy Rabbitte thinks taxes on work are pretty hefty now, what agonies must he have suffered around the Cabinet table when they were nearly twice as high? The second point to note about his desire for a wealth tax is that it would rapidly become a property tax. A wealth tax would operate only as a property tax because paper wealth can be transferred offshore but property cannot. The burden of a wealth tax would end up falling on to property. The sad fact is that the Labour Party ignores the lower rates, higher yields, more spending formula of the past decade. The party's absence from this debate speaks volumes. Beset by the impulses of a failed ideology, it would put our prosperity at risk.

It is interesting that Deputy Rabbitte said recently he was there to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. This shows the narrow, envy-driven ideology which lies at the back of his proposals. It is interesting that in these failed policies of the past, the Labour Party is joined by Sinn Féin, which wants to increase our rates of corporation tax and income tax. We just heard now for the first time that it also wants to increase PRSI, to take away the ceiling on employees' contribution. Now we know what is happening.

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