SIPTU PRESIDENT Jack O’Connor has said a rise in capital gains tax will be essential in getting the public finances back in order.
Mr O’Connor said Ireland cannot afford to have the lowest level of capital taxation in Western Europe, which was cut in half by former minister of finance Charlie McCreevy in 1998 from 40 per cent to 20 per cent, though it was increased to 22 per cent in this year’s budget.
He said those who prospered most during the boom years would have to shoulder much of the financial responsibility of helping to restore the public finances.
He criticised the Government for its over-reliance on revenues from the construction industry and for swallowing the “neo-liberal myth hook line and sinker”.
Speaking last night after his address to mark the centenary of the founding of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), Mr O’Connor some right-wing commentators had suggested there was “quick-fix solutions” to the problems which involved cuts in public pay and public expenditure. Siptu is due to take part in renewed partnership talks with the Government over the coming weeks with pressure on both sides to abandon the new pay deal agreed in September because of the rapid deterioration in the public finances.
Mr O’Connor warned that the unions would be standing firm on the pay deal, especially for the lower paid.
“The problems we are faced with will require a sustained national effort in the national interest, but we’re acutely aware, given our history, that the national interest has been confused with the interest of the better off.”
Mr O’Connor said the lessons of the credit crunch showed that unfettered capitalism was no fairer than socialist totalitarianism. “It is quite clear that the dictatorship of free marketeerism is no more efficacious for the problems facing humanity than the experiments in building socialism without democracy.”
