Fine Gael TD for Dublin Fingal and member of the Oireachtas Finance Committee, Alan Farrell, has said that Sinn Féin in government would attack the pay packets of all workers, to fund their fantasy promises.
“Sinn Féin claims that this Government legislates in the interests of the wealthy. However it was Sinn Féin who voted against the recent tax and USC cuts in the last budget, which have eased the burden on low and middle income earners. Sinn Féin’s own tax policies would in fact attack low and middle income earners.
“In their last budget submission Sinn Féin promised €1.7 billion worth of new taxes on work. That’s an average of over €1,062 for every home in the country. Every year for the last four years Sinn Féin has sought tax increases for ordinary workers. Sinn Féin have pledged to hit the higher paid with more taxes, but in Sinn Féin’s world, people earning over €32,800 are high earners.
“Fine Gael in Government is reducing tax and USC, to make work pay and to spread the economic recovery. Our plan is to progressively reduce the high tax rates on work. The increase in the threshold at which USC becomes payable in the last budget, took a further 80,000 people out of the charge altogether. That’s on top of the 330,000 people removed from USC by this Government in 2012, bringing to 410,000 the numbers of people on low incomes whose earnings are now better off under this Government than the last.
“Our strategy is resulting in all taxpaying workers and self-employed people paying less. We believe our tax cuts, when repeated again in 2016 and 2017, will create another 15,000 jobs in Ireland. Sinn Féin’s tax hikes on the other hand would lead to an ever increasing tax burden on Irish households, as well as threatening the fragile economic recovery.”