Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)

For example, the cleaning staff in one section of Leinster House will have to pay the levy on their miserable income while similar staff in another part of this House are not covered by the levy. One group is in the private sector and the other group is in the public sector, both are badly paid, but the levy only applies to one group. The proposal seeks to divide workers and set them against one another.

The other example of unfairness is the different rates payable within the targeted group. For example, a public service worker on €39,000 a year will pay €2,120 while his or her colleague on €44,000 will pay only €1,858. How can that be justified? It cannot. It is unfair and unacceptable. The strongest case against the levy is the application to those who cannot afford to pay. The levy applies to part-time workers, sole earners in families that are in receipt of family income supplement — a payment made to people who are on the breadline — and it is payable by workers who are on such low wages that they are not liable for income tax. It is payable on overtime and other income that cannot be reckoned in calculating pensions. How can any of that be justified? How is any of that fair or equitable? How is that sharing the burden equally?

Since the Government gate-crashed this wage cut through the talks with the social partners, I, like others, have been contacted by large numbers of public service workers. Every man and woman to whom I have spoken or from whom I have received e-mails are all prepared and willing to pay their fair share to rescue the economy. They stress they are not the cause of the problem. They are insistent that whatever is done must be worked out on a fair and equitable basis across all of society and not on a sectional basis, as is the case with the levy. I support them in that. They are angry that they and the public service they provide have been vilified as lazy and overpaid by their Government and the media.

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