INCOME LEVY:MINISTER FOR Finance Brian Lenihan has indicated that the Government may introduce changes to some aspects of the controversial 1 per cent income levy introduced in the Budget.
In an interview last night he said there could be some movement "around the edges" on how the levy was applied.
Mr Lenihan said the principle of the levy was that it was applied on all income.
But he said there were "issues of practicalities in collecting levies from all income".
"Income up to half the industrial wage was not levied under the previous levy and of course in the context of the Finance Act, the edges of this can be looked at, but that is all.
"That is not a fundamental issue," he said on RTÉ's The Week in Politics.
Trade union leaders strongly criticised the plans by the Government to apply the levy to those on low incomes at a meeting with Taoiseach Brian Cowen last Friday.
They maintained the measure would effectively eliminate the additional half per cent increase awarded to such workers in the proposed new national pay deal.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) asked the Government to introduce an income threshold below which the levy would not be applied.
Ictu suggested this could be a figure of €11 per hour or up to €23,000 per year.
Ictu said that Government and employers had accepted this figure as a definition of low pay in the recent pay talks.
However Siptu, the country's largest trade union maintained that a higher income level - the average industrial wage of €38,000 - should be the threshold for the levy.
General secretary of Ictu David Begg also warned the Government last week that trade union members could reject the new deal in ballots currently under way if they used their vote as a referendum on the Budget.
Mr Lenihan said the detail of the levy had to be worked out in legislation.
He said the Government would reflect on the submission made by Ictu.
Mr Cowen yesterday said the Ictu proposals in relation to the levy would be considered by the Cabinet on Tuesday.
This is the day before Siptu is due to consider its position on the proposed new pay deal and to decide whether to recommend it to members in a ballot.
The Siptu ballot of some 250,000 members starts on Thursday.
Siptu president Jack O'Connor said on Friday that union leaders had pointed out to the Taoiseach their concerns that the Budget disproportionately affected low- and middle-income groups.
He said unions had indicated the implications of this for the social partnership process and the long-term interest of the economy.
Asked whether they had received any concessions from Mr Cowen at the meeting, Mr O'Connor said they had not expected to see movement immediately but had gone to the meeting to set out their concerns.
