Taoiseach vows to scrap USC by 2018

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has vowed to scrap the “savage” universal social charge (USC) “in its entirety”, recover all jobs lost during the crash “by 2018” and help “at least” 70,000 emigrants come home — if his party is re-elected.

The Fine Gael leader outlined an ambitious blueprint to “sustain the recovery”, which also includes a promises to bring unemployment down to a “practically zero rate” of 6%, at Fine Gael’s annual presidential dinner in Dublin on Saturday night.

Speaking to party colleagues before Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin described the plans as the start of the “most cynical” election campaign in history, Mr Kenny said voters have a choice between “stability and economic progress on one hand, and chaos and uncertainty on the other”.

The Taoiseach said that, if re-elected, his party will remove the USC “completely” by 2021, despite the fact that Fine Gael’s current coalition partners, Labour, only want it cancelled for people on less than €70,000 a year.

He said the move will help create 200,000 jobs and encourage 70,000 emigrants to come home, and that, by 2018, he expects the Government’s policies to have “recovered all of the jobs lost in the recession years” — a figure he put at 300,000.

Mr Kenny further added that, if elected to a second term in government, his party aims to reduced unemployment from 9.6% to 6% through “sensible, affordable steps”.

“I, for one, don’t want to see Ireland’s hard-won progress put at risk by those who wrecked our economy several times in the past, or by those whose policies would surely wreck it in the future,” he said.

“Fine Gael has a plan to keep the recovery going. It’s a plan based on enterprise, not speculation.”

However, Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin yesterday rubbished the Government’s term in office and its interpretation of what a real recovery involves. Speaking at his own party’s annual Wolfe Tone commemorations at Bodenstown cemetery, Co Kildare, Mr Martin said “there is absolutely no doubt” Ireland needs the revolutionary’s “inclusive” and “true spirit of Irish republicanism now more than ever”.

“Today we are becoming a more unfair and divided society,” he said. “We are experiencing a two-tier recovery which is threatening to deliver a two-tier economy and society. It is the direct result of the unjust and unfair policies of this Government. Enda Kenny said repeatedly during the week that his Government had done the job it was elected to do. He said this with no irony and no equivocation — they have done the job the Irish people elected them to do. This shows just how out of touch and arrogant this government has become.”

Pointing to 1,500 children sleeping in emergency accommodation and an “unprecedented” rural “crime wave” Mr Martin said: “When Enda Kenny says his Government did the job it was elected to do, he is yet again showing that he will not recognise, let alone address, the very real issues facing our country.

“His effort goes into promoting the fairytale of a Government which supposedly delivered recovery. This remains a Government of spin and broken promises.”