A REDUCTION in the tax and PRSI take from workers pay packets was the chief commitment to emerge from a joint press conference conducted by the three Government leaders, shortly after the Dail was dissolved.
Employment, Northern Ireland, the hepatitis C scandal and health spending also dominated the event.
The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton refused to specify how tax would be cut in the next government under his command, saying that further details would be revealed in the parties manifestos next week. However, he did indicate that, rather than focusing on a change in the existing tax rates they would implement reductions by means of widening the tax bands, increasing personal allowances and reducing PRSI.
The rainbow coalition would increase everybody's takehome pay. A single person on average income pays about 28p in the pound, he said, but over a five year period, the government would reduce that to 22p. A married person on the average industrial wage keeps about 80p in the pound but that would be increased to 86p by his government.
He identified employment as a priority going into the election and also emphasised the need for investment in education.
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, focused on the management of the economy, "the quest for peace in Northern Ireland" and crime as the top priorities. The leader of Democratic Left and Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, said there was likely to be "very little differences between the parties". But the difference lay in how the parties would actually address the issues.
Social solidarity and sharing prosperity would be addressed by the Government parties, not like the Progressive Democrats whose policy was "dog eat dog".
Responding to questions about the legal strategy adopted in the case of the late Mrs Brigid McCole, Mr Bruton said the Blood Transfusion Service Board had devised its own legal strategy. The Government was given information "on an occasional basis" but the State was involved in its own legal strategy, he said.
According to the Tanaiste a new opportunity" now exists for the peace process with the election of the Labour government in Britain. This should be "nurtured".
Asked how new opportunities could be exploited if the Government did not meet Sinn Fein, he said it was during a meeting between the party and Government officials that an attempt was made to kill someone in a Belfast hospital. He was referring to an attack in the Royal Victoria Hospital on RUC men guarding Mr Nigel Dodds of the DUP who was visiting his child.
"We have made it clear the official channel will be used as soon as it is clear that an IRA ceasefire is in sight," he said.
When The Irish Times Political Correspondent, Ms, Geraldine Kennedy, asked the Taoiseach by how much he would have to reduce existing tax rates in order to achieve the cuts he is promising, Mr De Rossa said if one concentrated all resources on the rates, "you would end up doing what the PDs and Fianna Fail did in the last two governments, of which you were a supporter, I think, which resulted in 17 per cent of an increase for PAYE workers".
At the end of the press conference, he apologised to Ms Kennedy for the remark.