Real tax improvements for those on low to moderate incomes will only be possible if the wealthiest 20 per cent of taxpayers receive no concessions in the Budget, an Irish Congress of Trade Unions delegation has told the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy. It also proposed that banks and other financial institutions should be excluded from the proposed reductions in corporation tax.
In a separate submission, the National Youth Council of Ireland told Mr McCreevy that tax concessions should be concentrated on the low-paid and that no one should enter the tax net who earned less than the proposed national minimum wage of £4.40 an hour. It also called for tax relief on rent for low-income groups, such as students and young workers, to be increased from £500 to £2,500 a year.
Representatives of the ICTU met Mr McCreevy yesterday to discuss next month's Budget. The general secretary, Mr Peter Cassells, said the ICTU leaders had impressed on the Minister the need "to strike a fair balance between the need to reform the tax system, provide for social inclusion and invest in the future".
The Government should appoint a Minister for Transport, whose job would be to get traffic moving in our major cities, a senior trade unionist has told an ICTU conference on public transport. A SIPTU economist, Mr Paul Sweeney, said trade unionists could "no longer afford to have complacent transport planners running the show. Nor could they afford incompetent management."