THE message of those who are opposed to taxation is often that the rich can look after themselves and those who are not rich can remain excluded from society, the general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union, Mr Dan Murphy, told the ICTU biennial delegate conference yesterday.
Simplistic anti-tax slogans such as "getting the State off our backs" would allow society to become a jungle based on the principle of the survival of the fittest, taxation was sometimes discussed as if it were a punitive measure, the reality was that it paid for services from education to social welfare.
The widely held view that Ireland was a heavily taxed State was erroneous. If society chose to opt for lower taxes it was also opting "willy nilly" for poorer public services, he said. "This is not a matter of great concern for those who command substantial incomes but it is a disaster for the people we represent and, even more so, for the unemployed, the weak and the marginal in society."
The real issue, he added, was not the overall level of taxation, but the fairness in the distribution of the burden.