Seanad debates

Wednesday, 10 November 2004

6:00 pm

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Independent)

Senator Dardis was not there and no doubt he would have been extremely uncomfortable there, as were many of the people who were.

The Minister said that the tax system we have had, which was somehow a revelation to Fianna Fáil and everybody else in 1993-94, is working. I am open to contradiction but he said that low taxes give jobs and create prosperity. He said it himself, which I thought was very brave, that low taxes mean more tax revenue. Of course he is correct and the figures prove it. The figures he gave for corporation tax were staggering. Ireland has one of the lowest corporation tax rates in Europe and €5 billion is coming in every year. As the tax goes down, the revenue goes up.

I was delighted to hear what Senator McDowell had to say about corporation tax because, if I am not mistaken, he has shifted his ground a little. I listened to him in the past being critical of the low rate and today he said we may have to live with 12.5%. That statement is very welcome. If this is working, even the Labour Party will have to acknowledge that it works, creates more revenue and gives more money to the Minister to spend on those causes which the party genuinely espouses and champions. That is what we all want and it is only a means to an end.

What is so extraordinary is the statement a few weeks ago by the leader of ICTU, Mr. David Begg, that he wants corporate taxes to increase to 20%. He wants less tax to come in so that he can give less money to those underprivileged people whom he claims to champion and wants to see having a better life. I wonder what is going on. For the first time, and it is a very welcome development, I have seen Ministers pooh-poohing the head of the ICTU. They do not express it in those terms. They say such an idea is not a particularly good idea, without saying where the idea came from. They never say that David Begg is talking absolute nonsense because they are scared stiff of him. They would prefer to say that to the Taoiseach. There are some people of a traditional ideological conviction who still mouth the rhetoric of yesterday when the facts indicate otherwise.

I welcome the Minister's coming to the House and stating that these are the facts. I do not believe he is not going to balance that statement. The budget will contain a great deal of rhetoric which will presumably give some high profile grants to very deserving causes. That is tremendous, in my view. If the Minister has the opportunity to give away €1.5 billion in the budget, we should not scream that he is buying votes or buying his way to the leadership of Fianna Fáil. We should say that is wonderful because he has done it through a new policy which has only been discovered in the last ten years and he has done it successfully. He is beginning to prove that the days of high taxation, high borrowing, high expenditure and bankruptcy are beginning to come to an end. Those philosophies are finished and it is actually much easier than we thought.

Senator McDowell and his party may come over to this point of view. It looks like they are moving so fast that it will make for very boring politics in this country for the next 15 years because everybody will be in agreement. There will be a Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition the day after the next general election. I assure Senator McDowell we can all live with that; we lived with it before and we will live with it again.

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