Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

-----in regard to some of the alternative and solidly evidenced proposals that we on the left tabled. The Deputies should not demean or downgrade the information that is given through parliamentary questions from the Department of Finance, which is what was done tonight. For example, when I submitted a question to the Minister for Finance asking for a certain schema to be worked out in respect of three higher tax bands for those earning between €100,000 and €200,000, he replied that it would yield €1.1 billion extra in income taxes. The United Left Alliance's submission went further and wider and came up with €2.5 billion. What was missing was any will whatsoever by this Government to tax the very wealthy as opposed to hitting the majority of ordinary working class people and the poor, as it has done again in spades in this budget, which is quite shameful.

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