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

I thank the Deputy. He is right that more than 1 million people pay the highest rate of income tax in Ireland. One hits the highest rate of tax at a much lower level than would be the case in the majority of our competitor countries. We have raised that threshold. Not so long ago it was €33,000 a year and it is now €40,000. We want to raise it further in forthcoming budgets. We will do as much as we can afford to do within the budgetary constraints with regard to the tax package. The Deputy should bear in mind that unlike some of the one-off measures we have announced in budgets in recent times, tax reductions are cumulative. The tax package of €1.1 billion in the forthcoming budget is on top of the tax package of €1.1 billion in the previous budget, which makes €2.2 billion. We had tax packages of €0.5 billion in previous budgets, so it is all adding up to €4 billion, €5 billion and €6 billion less in tax that those middle-income people pay because this Government is in office and the alternative is not.

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