FF refuse to commit to McDowell's tax cuts

Progressive Democrat coalition partners Fianna Fáil today refused to commit to matching the PD's tax cut proposals euro-for-euro.

PD leader Michael McDowell has promised to abolish stamp duty for first-time buyers, to bring in an SSIA-type scheme for pensions and to reduce income tax rates at the standard and higher bands.

However, the Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan said today that her party does not engage in 'auction politics'.

She said Fianna Fáil will take a balanced approach to the taxation issue when it reveals its election pledges very shortly:

"It's hugely important to ensure that when we do change economic policies that they are targeted towards the people who need them, and not necessarily others who may benefit as a consequence, and that's why we have to take a balanced approach on where we are going to be over the next five years," she said.

"But we have always had a low-taxation initiative here, and we have to show very clearly that by ensuring that we have low taxation in one sector that, as a consequence, we don't increase it somewhere else."