Labour wants new wealth tax to pay for pandemic bonus

The Government should look to introduce a one-off wealth tax on affluent couples in order to help pay for the pandemic bonus, the Labour Party has said. Picture: iStock

The Government should look to introduce a one-off wealth tax on affluent couples in order to help pay for the pandemic bonus, the Labour Party has said.

Labour Senator Marie Sherlock said the Government should look at a one-off wealth tax as a means of paying for the recognition payment for public servants.

Speaking at Leinster House, she cited proposals last year from the UK on applying a temporary wealth tax to try and pay for some of the pandemic measures.

“So I think that is certainly something that this Government needs to look at,” she said in the context of the “grovelling” attitude the Government has towards large multinational companies and the low rates of tax they pay.

“The proposals in the UK looked at couples with particular wealth over a certain threshold. I said that there should be a once-off tax on those couples, for a period of time to try and pay for this pandemic-related costs,” she said.

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She said she was citing the example from the UK but her party was “not being prescriptive” in what should happen here.

Her colleague, Dublin Fingal TD Duncan Smith said the Government, as the State’s large employer, needed to really get serious, and actually put concrete proposals to the unions in terms of paying a bonus or paid annual leave.

“At this stage, we want to see real concrete proposals go through the unions, and something that adequately rewards the sacrifice that our frontline workers made. If we're going to be going down the route of a bank holiday as well I think it's good to be cognisant to remember workers that are outside the health system, particularly retail workers,” he said.