John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

The former Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment made a number of interesting comments in her time at that Department. In September 2000, she stated that taxation of work was still too high, and that in an environment where we had 20% capital gains tax and 12.5% tax on corporation profits, we could not have the situation where the only people who paid tax at 40% and 20% were those who worked. She also stated that those on low to medium incomes, meaning those who earned below the minimum wage, should not have to pay tax. That situation is still not resolved, although she has been at Cabinet with her colleagues for the past four years. She now finds herself in a new position, but that has still not been resolved. The people were given a commitment then and that commitment should be honoured by Government.

I want to refer to a comment Senator Mansergh made on the 41 people earning more than €500,000 who were recently exposed for not having paid any tax. How can the Government justify this motion and tell the ordinary PAYE worker what a great job it is doing on tax, while those people continue to pay no tax? The actual figure over the past few years has risen rather than decreased. It is completely unjustifiable and I have great pleasure in proposing the amendment.