OPPOSITION PARTY LEADER Eamon Gilmore has been outlining his proposals for tackling the deficit during the Dáil debates on Ireland’s economy.
The Labour Party leader said his party would increase the top tax rate for people earning over €100k to 48%, introduce metered water charges, and implement a €200 tax on second homes, the Irish Times reports.
He claims an even split between extra taxes and spending would meet the deficit target of 3% of GDP by 2014, and suggests reducing capital spending by €2.5bn over three years.
He said Labour would introduce a voluntary redundancy scheme for the public sector for areas of identifiable over-staffing.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael claims there’s still no certainty over the size of the budget cutbacks needed. It says they could be as high as €20bn or as low as €9bn, depending on which annual growth forecasts from independent experts are used.
The Irish Independent reports that Enda Kenny did not provide any specific plans for cutbacks during yesterday’s debate, despite criticising the Taoiseach for failing to provide details on cuts.
The party has said it is committed to meeting the 3% deficit target, but yesterday Michael Noonan said he could not agree with the government’s proposed €15bn cuts over four years:
We are not buying in. We need more information. We certainly need to know how the minister built up his forecast.
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said that the €15bn adjustment plan will concentrate more on spending cuts than tax increases.
He said that while a frontloaded Budget 2011 “may damped economic growth in 2011″, it would give confidence to the markets and secure Ireland’s borrowing, the Irish Times reports.
Minister Brian Lenihan said he would announce details of the adjustment plan in mid-November, according to Bloomberg.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say