Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will outline what we have done in the past three years, if we add it all up. Income tax and USC reductions have been worth approximately €1,500 per year to the average household. That was a good thing to do. It might not be a vast amount of money, but for a large number of people it is the equivalent of a monthly mortgage repayment, a month's childcare or a month's rent. That would not have happened otherwise. The average household would be that much worse off had it not been for the tax packages in the past three budgets.

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