THE LABOUR PARTY has questioned the government’s €15bn adjustment figure, RTÉ reports.

While Labour says it accepts that the figure would need to be greater than €7.5bn, it did not accept that it would be as much as €15bn.

Speaking on RTE’s This Week programme, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said that his party had not been given the figures on which the government had made it made its forecast, including a projected rate of growth.

Gilmore added that Labour would not cut children’s allowance in the upcoming budget, and would instead tax higher earners more.

He said that his party would favour the introduction of a third rate of income tax for those earning over €100,000 a year and the elimination of a number of tax benefits, such as property reliefs, rent reliefs, and the top end of pension reliefs.

Gilmore added that if the Croke Park agreement was worked properly to reform the public service, then savings of around €1.4bn on payroll could be achieved over three years. To achieve this, he explained, both the redeployment of staff and a voluntary redundancy scheme to cut staffing by around 15,000 would be needed.