McGrath 'will not be bullied' over budget

Finance Minister was responding to call by Fine Gael junior ministers call for €1,000 tax cut

Finance Minister Michael McGrath said he would meet with his officials on Wednesday to examine which tax measures he will take in his first budget as Finance Minister. Picture: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

Finance Minister Michael McGrath insists he will not be bullied over the shape of this year's budget by his coalition partners.

Mr McGrath was speaking after a trio of Fine Gael junior ministers — Jennifer Carroll McNeill, Martin Heydon and Peter Burke — wrote an op-ed for the Irish Independent arguing the budget should include a €1,000 tax cut for workers, an idea that was slammed as "nuts" by senior Fianna Fáil figures.

Speaking on Wednesday, Mr McGrath said he did not feel as though the piece, along with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's announcement on Tuesday that the State pension will increase, was an attempt to back him into a corner on the budget.

Asked if he would be bullied on the shape of the final announcement, Mr McGrath was adamant.

“Certainly not,” he said “Anybody who knows me well enough knows that I can be as tough as anybody else when it comes to negotiations. I will always be conciliatory and polite, but I can be as firm as I need to be and I will be.

“I will be designing the tax package and it will be done following consultation with all of our colleagues across Government."

The minister said he would meet with his officials on Wednesday to examine which tax measures he will take in his first budget as Finance Minister.

Mr McGrath said there would be a "vigorous debate" among the coalition around the shape of the budget.

It’s fine to have a national debate, a political debate, but it will come down to choices in the end and there will be lots of ideas floated, lots of kites flown, lots of articles written in the next number of months.” 

He said social welfare rates would increase, but warned this would not be done using windfall corporation taxes.

"Because of the strength of the economy the public finances — even if you park the issue of the windfall receipts, which we have separate plans for — we will be able to make recurring commitments on the back of the normal receipts and revenues that we're collecting as a Government and there will be an income tax package in the budget.

"There will be a welfare package... including for pensioners and carers, for people on invalidity, pension and so on. But the exact amount and the detail of that is far from decided and in truth or be decided until the days and a couple of weeks leading up to budget day. So we have a long way to go."