Madam, – I read with growing incredulity Stephen O’Byrnes’s piece (Opinion, December 31st). He, late of the late Progressive Democrats, so to speak.
Was it not an absolute axiom of faith for the Progressive Democrats that low personal taxation was the engine that created jobs? It was this economic insight that set them apart, this was their mission statement.
They, along with Charlie McCreevy, ruthlessly pursued this policy to the point that tax take in this country is so low that the State is not in a position to fund the public services that are required in a modern western democracy.
It turns out, however, that wealth was not being generated by the imposition of a mythical economic truth, no; we were “building houses and selling them to one another”!
Apparently what we need according to Mr O’Byrnes is “leadership based on facts, not fantasy”. Indeed! – Yours, etc,