Inequality needs addressing

Your editorial (Aug 10) “Fairness must define the budget” had the ring of wishful thinking about it — if the depression has taught us one thing it is that Irish politicians do not do “fairness”.

We simply have to look over the last budget to see that the poorest saw their incomes tumble while the wealthiest saw very significant increases in theirs — and this situation was delivered with a Labour Party at the helm.

Two events in the same week as your editorial demonstrated that things are very unlikely to change. Firstly we had the politicians clapping themselves on the back because the wealthiest elites have paid 30% income tax in the last year figures are available for. This looks impressive when compared to what they had previously being paying, thanks to the likes of Charlie McCreevy, a paltry 5%. (Astonishing to think that this state of affairs was going on for years and nobody in power thought that it might be in the slightest unfair.) So it is not surprising to find that Ireland is the unfairest country in Europe when you see that our highest tax rate is 41%, while in civilised countries like Denmark or Sweden high end income attracts rates of the order of 63%.