Enda Kenny coy over taxation remarks by President

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny refused to be drawn on Wednesday whether he had remonstrated with the President Michal D. Higgins after the President publicly asked if it was possible to have a decent society and at the same time lower taxes for short political gain.

Asked on RTÉ radio if it was appropriate for the President to make such a comment, Mr Kenny said he had spoken to Mr Higgins and that “he understood his remit”.

“I am not going to interfere across [the]threshold. The President has made a number of comments over the years. I have conversations with him. We understand each other”.

Asked if he had remonstrated with him over the remarks, Mr Kenny said he had a pleasant exchange of views with the President.

“He is a president I respect very much”.

Asked whether he disagreed with the President’s remarks, Mr. Kenny said politicians had to make decisions in the interests of the people.

“ My answer is it is possible to have a decent society with lower taxes”.

In an unprecedented intervention on the eve of the general election campaign President Michael D Higgins questioned the emphasis being placed on tax cuts by political parties.

“Is it possible to have a decent society and at the same time continue to lower taxes for the purposes of securing the best short-term benefit?” asked Mr Higgins.

Speaking to The Irish Times at Áras an Uachtaráin earlier this month after the publication of his report on The President of Ireland's Ethics Initiative, Mr Higgins warned that essential services must not become a political football in the election campaign."I can't obviously comment on the platforms of the parties that will contest the election," he said before discussing the issue of taxation.

“People setting their face against tax and using the language that regards it as inevitably a great burden I’m afraid represents a view of the world [which]is not one that I think really can engage with what we are speaking about in the ethics initiative.”

The President said there had been great failures of an ethical kind in the lead-up to the recession but the good news was that the public wanted to get to a new place and wanted to get there ethically.

“But sometimes they are contradicted because they are being offered short-term advantages for themselves which are, if you like, contradicting the best of their social aspirations,” he said.