John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)

I am very worried when I get support from Senator Ross. There has been a major fall off in tax revenue since the middle of the year. In this, Ireland is not unique; the same thing is happening in other European countries. The German Government is increasing taxation to recover revenue. We must protect the gains that have been made here. The Government will not be raising direct taxation. We have made great progress in reducing the burden of taxation on enterprise and employment and we recognise that this has been central to our economic success over the last five years. Progressive Democrat policies have helped cut the basic income tax rate from 26% to 20% and the higher rate from 48% to 42%. Capital taxation was halved from 40% to 20% and the standard rate of corporation tax was reduced from 36% to 16%.

These policies produced success over the last five years and it is worthwhile recounting those successes. There are 370,000 more people at work, the rate of unemployment is down from 10% to 4%, the number of people in long-term unemployment has fallen from 90,000 to 20,000 and emigration has been ended. If people want to leave the country they do so voluntarily rather than compulsorily as was the case.