Ah, the silence of those who opposed the tax cuts of Charlie McCreevy because, it was alleged, these cuts discriminated against the poor. "What we need is more tax revenues which we can distribute to the needy," wailed these Lady Bountifuls, who saw the State primarily as a confiscating machine, scooping up wealth so that it could be parachuted onto dole queues.
The most vocal of Charlie's critics were often members of religious orders who were sitting on vast land-tracts which were worth millions, precisely because of Charlie's policies. These orders weren't dependent on earned income, and they remain perhaps the most asset-rich, untaxed group in Ireland. My, how enjoyable it was, hearing them tell me I should pay more tax to help the poor.
High-tax culture
Charlie didn't listen, because Charlie inhabits a real world in which the fastest way to discourage enterprise and an adult sense of responsibility is by low taxation. We had the high-tax culture for years, and with it we had emigration, economic inertia and chronic dependency in housing estates such as Darndale and Tallaght.
Go to those estates first thing in the morning now, and you'll find a mass exodus of people heading towards their jobs. The work culture has arrived, and has transformed the lives of people who a few years ago seemed irredeemably trapped by the twin evils of indolence and hand-outs. The liberator of these people, who showed them that they could be the architects of their own lives, is Charles McCreevy, the best Minister for Finance and the greatest benefactor of the poor this country has ever known.
You might guess from this that I like Charlie McCreevy. This is good. You are clever. Go to the top of the class. I like him, and I like his mind, and what's more, I like his wife. Heavens, I even kissed her once, and it was very pleasurable indeed. And if ever there's a chance of second helpings, I'll leap at them. Yum.
But at this point, the encomium stops and the warning starts. Charlie, if you remove the limit on PRSI payments from the productive part of the economy - e.g. me - but without reforming the PRSI system, you will not be my friend again. I am serious, here: I might even stop kissing your wife, and you know what, Charlie, she might not like that one bit.
This is my grievance. I pay PRSI at 4.91 per cent. I also pay tax on the money that I pay as PRSI, which essentially brings the cost of my PRSI contributions to about 7.5 per cent of my entire income. But you, Charlie, and all those TDs who never complain about PRSI, you only pay PRSI at 2 per cent on the rest of your income, after the first £226 a week, which is PRSI-free for all.
Civil servants
The civil servants who advise you Charlie, they pay PRSI according to a tariff of dazzling complexity which I asked your officials to explain to me; and though they were very nice and very helpful - and why wouldn't they be, working with you? - alas, explaining figures to me is like describing a sunset to a pit-pony. But in as much as I understood anything of what they said to me, I would gather that civil servants employed before 1995 - the vast majority of them - essentially pay PRSI at 0.9 per cent - even less than you, my boy.
Charlie: you were the politician who sold the message that punitively taxing the productive economy simply exports jobs and imports dole queues instead. But listen: the very term "PRSI" is a lie - which the political establishment has connived at down the years, simply because you were all largely exempt from it. It is not a genuine social insurance policy, but in fact a tax.
You are not the only ones exempt from this tax. The PAYE workers in the productive sector, they pay PRSI; but the professional classes - the doctors, the solicitors, the barristers, the accountants - who earn fees for a living, and who are among the highest paid group in Ireland, they are exempt from it. This means that when a doctor earns £100 and I earn £100, his £100 is worth about £7 more than mine.
Tens of thousands
But of course, we are not talking about £100 here, Charlie. We are talking in tens of thousands of pounds. And that is why I get very scared when I hear talk of you lifting the ceiling on income which is susceptible to PRSI payments, which currently stands at £28,250. I don't mind paying tax at the same level as other people. But when I see my £10,000 being worth £700 less than the £10,000 earned by a barrister, and over £600 less than the £10,000 of the civil servant who devised the PRSI differentials, and £500 less than you yourself pay, Charlie, something dangerous inside me begins to stir as I see PRSI confiscations reaching into hitherto untouched zones.
I hear tumbrils in my sleep, Charlie. I dream of dropping blades and knitting needles clacking beside the guillotine. But even before we get that far - and I can be a regular little Robespierre when crossed - there is our friend the law. Are preferential tax differentials constitutional? Do they contravene EU law, as a violation of natural justice? Charlie: do you want me sueing you?
A warning: the price for making me angry might be more than the mere osculatory-deprivation of your poor wife. Be careful. It's my wallet you're talking about here.