Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin is a high tax party and all of the bombast, rhetoric and personal remarks in the world will not get away from the fact that it is involved in fantasy economics and its proposals on a series of budgets do not add up. It is a tax and spend party and is entitled to take that position. It wants to raise taxes on everybody. Our position is different. We want to reduce taxes, in particular personal taxes. I do not need an analysis from the ESRI to tell me that if somebody pays no tax or USC, he or she does not get relief if I reduce USC or income tax. I do not need someone with a PhD in economics to tell me that. If one does not pay tax, a tax reduction will not affect one. We have taken a lot of people out of USC and are committed to increasing the 400,000 people at work who do not pay it to 500,000 in the budget. If one falls within those levels of income, then a USC reduction does not affect one. It gives one no relief because one does pay any USC.

The same applies to income tax. If one is not liable for income tax, one does not pay it. To ensure that there is a balanced and even distributional effect we have put a limit on the reductions in personal income taxes of €70,000. Anybody with an income above that is in the same position as someone earning €70,000. That worked out at about €14 a week last year. We will continue with somewhat similar measures on this occasion.

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