The wealthiest 20 per cent of the population should receive no tax concessions in the next budget, according to the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Peter Cassells. It was sound economics and socially just to spread the benefits of the present boom to the low-paid and middle-income earners.
The ICTU says research shows that people earning less than £35,000 a year under the PAYE system would not be adversely affected by such a budget.
"A carefully balanced budget will be more important this year than in any year since the state was founded," Mr Cassells told the ICTU Network of Unemployed Centres in Dublin yesterday. "The unprecedented levels of economic growth and financial buoyancy combined with the new restrictions imposed by our membership of EMU presents the Minister for Finance with major challenges and opportunities.
"Mr McCreevy will have to tell the top 20 per cent of wealthiest people that they will not get any concessions in this year's budget. It is both economically sound and socially just for those business people, investors, shareholders, housebuilders, auctioneers, `new wave' publicans, restaurateurs, farmers, bankers and topincome earners to accept that they cannot get any more rewards in this year's budget."