Greens to seek rail investment, new tax rate

The Green party is “absolutely determined” that spending on transport “should go to rail projects including Metro North and the rail interconnector, according to Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan.

Speaking at a press conference at the end of the party’s annual convention in Wexford, Mr Ryan insisted that on matters of public transport if “hard decisions” have to be taken on the reallocation of money, the Greens’ “absolute and utter determination and conviction is that that money goes to public transport and the likes of those project which provide for our future when oil is not going to be cheaply available”.

He also said the party’s key message at the convention was that “there’s a way of turning the economy and the country around” and the party was “now very experienced in Government to achieve that reform from within”.

Party finance spokesman Dan Boyne said the Greens will be calling for a new super tax rate on incomes of over €100,000 in Government negotiations on the emergency Budget in April.

Senator Boyle said the size of the exchequer gap to be filled is “large” and the mechanism to fill that “will be new taxation measures”.

He said yesterday that “we will be putting a particular emphasis on the need for a new super tax rate on incomes over €100,000. The negotiations will be talking about the type of rate that needs to be set in the context of other taxation changes that are likely to happen.”

Mr Ryan said of the report on bank executive remuneration that the Government is “not bound by its recommendations”. At a press conference at the end of the party’s convention in Wexford he was asked about speculation that it would recommend a cap on executive salary of €800,000.

He said “we’ll obviously read and do a very keen analysis”. But “we’re not confined by their advice and recommendation. And my own instinct is to look at international examples of banks where caps were put in place in banks where the State has a stake”.

Emphasising projects such as Metro North and the rail interconnector, he said the party would go into Budget negotiations “absolutely determined to see those projects delivered”. These projects would connect up all the rail lines in Dublin and make it a completely integrated functioning system for the first time in 150 years and that would provide “massive, massive benefits” in terms of maintaining the capital as a favourable location for inward investment.

Mr Ryan said that “one of the positive things coming out of this weekend, across the party is that while there’s concern about certain aspects and certain decisions, there’s very strong solid support about the approach we’re taking.”

He said “We shouldn’t be prescriptive but very much concentrate on the revenue raising side rather than cost cutting, because we’ve been working at cost cutting for a time.”

The “difficulty is 80 per cent of Government spending is in health education and social welfare so if you start from a basis of excluding those three sections you’re not going to be able to achieve the overall objective of the necessary adjustments.

“It’s a two or three stage process. There’ll be certain short-term measures followed by further measures in next December’s budget. We’ve shown ourselves willing to take hard decision and that’s not popular and won’t be particularly like but is for the sake of the country the right thing to do.”