Madam, – There is a flaw in the table attached to Dr Garret FitzGerald’s article (Opinion, September 25th). He starts with the average income in Ireland last year and then proceeds to equate it with average incomes elsewhere, instead of with income of the same purchasing power.
He says that the difference does not matter; I would disagree. I know something about this field since a great part of my master’s thesis in economics at Trinity College, Dublin, was based upon similar extrapolations. The broad thrust of his argument is still sound: that the upper levels of income in Ireland are, and for a long time have been, grossly under-taxed.
If his advice had been followed, though the banking crash would have hit us just the same, its causes lying elsewhere (chiefly in sham regulation), we would now have a spare billion or so euro in the national kitty instead of being effectively bankrupt.
The Labour Party, as the traditional custodian of equity in taxation, should be in the forefront here, but unfortunately the terror that afflicts all parties at the mere thought of the loss of votes that might result from an ill-judged campaign seems to have given it a fit of the heebie-jeebies. Denunciation of the sitting Government is far easier. – Yours, etc,