FG’s tax pledge would 'bankrupt the country' - FF

Fianna Fáil today claimed a pledge by Fine Gael to offer €2 billion in tax cuts would "bankrupt the country".

In the first weekend of campaigning in the General Election, Fianna Fáil said the proposals would create a €6.5 billion "black hole" in the exchequer.

Yesterday Fine Gael promised the biggest income tax cuts of the campaign, offering €2 billion in concessions mainly to low and middle-income earners.

The party promised to take everyone on the minimum wage out of the tax net immediately. Fine Gael finance spokesman, Mr Jim Mitchell, said this would affect 100,000 people, who would share €100 million in tax rebates at the end of this year - an average payment of €1,000 each.

But Fianna Fáil said today that Fine Gael is promising "everything to everybody and would bankrupt the country if they tried to implement these proposals".

Fianna Fáil’s Mr Seamus Brennan said: "Even a basic assessment of their figures shows they just don't add up.

"It's one fib after another from Fine Gael this week. They will blow the country's finances and return us to being a Third World basket case economy with their plans," he said.

Fine Gael has accused Fianna Fáil - whose own manifesto centres on the creation of a new national agency to deal with infrastructure projects - of indulging in so-called "Enron economics".

The Fianna Fáil broadside prompted responses from two former leaders of Fine Gael, Mr John Bruton and Mr Alan Dukes, both also one-time finance ministers.

Mr Bruton challenged Minster for Finance Mr Charlie McCreevy to spell out in greater detail his own finance proposals, outlined in the Fianna Fáil election manifesto.

"He must lay it out clearly how and where and on whom the charges he envisages will be levied. If he is not able to answer this sort of question after five years as minister, then he and his government have run out of road."

Mr Dukes said in defence of the Fine Gael blueprint: "All of our proposals have been costed with the advice of the (Mr McCreevy's) Department of Finance."