Water charges mean tax cuts are ‘pathetically inadequate’
The party claimed the Coalition’s first post-bailout budget would do little to mend crises in unemployment, housing, and health.
Amid heckling in the Dáil, independent TDs also dismissed the budget and said the concessions would not quell a revolt of water charges.
Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald, who was ejected from the chamber after a row with the ceann comhairle, said the Coalition was “hurting the working poor” with their eyes wide open. She called on the Government to scrap water and property charges. The tax cuts for workers were “pathetically inadequate” in comparison to crippling water charges, she said.
VISIT OUR DEDICATED BUDGET 2015 SECTION FOR MORE NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Pearse Doherty, Sinn Féin’s finance spokesman, claimed ministers, like other high earners, would gain €746 from the budget tax changes next year while a low-paid worker would save just €174.
“At a time when children are being forced to sleep in cars, tents, or hotel beds, or on the floors of relatives’ homes, because of the lack of investment in housing, it is criminal for the Government to cut the top rate of tax,” he said.
Independent TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the impact of water and property charges would mean struggling families would still be worse off next year. Higher income earners would be able to meet the charges through tax cuts announced for them in the budget, he claimed.
Newly elected TD Paul Murphy, in his first Dáil comments, said the Coalition was giving with one hand and taking back with the other through water charges.
Reform Alliance TD Lucinda Creighton attacked relief for developers. She said the abolition of the 80% windfall tax on rezoning was the result of months of lobbying by the construction industry and the attendance by Taoiseach Enda Kenny at “private dinners for bankers and developers”.
VISIT OUR DEDICATED BUDGET 2015 SECTION FOR MORE NEWS AND ANALYSIS
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