Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Everything we are doing is to expand the tax base we have. We have brought the corporate tax yield from €4.5 billion to €10 billion. We have brought the income tax take from €11 billion to €22 billion, and that is why we are able to spend more on health, social protection, education and other such services. This is part of our successful armoury to get companies from outside Ireland to come here. It is so we can have the jobs with a salary of €40,000. When we get them in, success involves moving them up the value chain. One keeps moving them up the value chain so a salary of €40,000 becomes a salary of €45,000, and then €50,000. That is why we have 2.32 million people at work in this State.

I accept that when people are at work, Sinn Féin becomes irrelevant. It may have had success in a by-election.