The Government was criticised yesterday for "tax-favouritism of the already privileged" at the expense of the moderately paid by the general secretary of SIPTU, Mr John McDonnell.
A radical reform of the tax and welfare system in November's Budget would be one of the key considerations for SIPTU members as they considered strategy for any future agreement involving the social partners, said Mr McDonnell at the union's national nursing convention in Tralee.
"Continuing with the present policy of favouring the higher earners to the detriment of the low and middle-income earners will signal the beginning of the end of such partnership agreements, I believe," he said in his address at the opening of the convention last night. The present tax situation has helped fuel the current housing crisis to such an extent that a family home had now been placed outside the reach of families, not only on or below average earnings, but even in the case of those earning twice as much, he said.
"And yet the Government expects the Celtic Tiger to have a mobile workforce. Nurses, for example, will be expected to relocate in order to service major new projects such as the Tallaght Hospital."
The prices demanded for a normal family home in the greater Dublin area had increased "by as much as 60 per cent over the level applying just two years ago."
The recent package of measures introduced by the Government to halt the increase would be counteracted, he said, "by the same Government's dogged insistence on standing by the outrageous decision to slash in half the rate of capital gains tax from 40 per cent to a mere 20 per cent.
"With such a green light given to speculators by the Government, is it any wonder that speculative investors are buying up to 80 per cent of some flat developments and as much as 30 per cent of new homes?"
SIPTU is demanding that tax policies which, he said, fly in the face of the previously agreed tax strategy, be reversed.
Mr Oliver McDonagh, national nursing official, said recent stands taken by gardai and prison officers would show that people in positions of public responsibility "will no longer be held back by emotional blackmail. They will be responsible and professional in their dealings with the public but will take appropriate stands to protect their own rights and enhance their own conditions."