LABOUR Party spokeswoman on finance Joan Burton last night portrayed the Government’s windfall tax proposal as having been introduced too late to be of any relevance. Ms Burton also questioned whether the tax had any relation with the National Asset Management Agency.
“A windfall tax, while welcome, has nothing to do with Nama because the Nama process will not be captured by a windfall tax,” she said.
Speaking from the Labour Party conference in Faithlegg, Co Waterford, Ms Burton also criticised the risk-sharing mechanism that has been agreed by the Government as having deviated from the original proposal made by Prof Patrick Honohan, the newly appointed governor of the Central Bank.
“The risk-sharing that has been suggested by Government Ministers is essentially a largely cosmetic exercise which has no validity.
“The original one proposed by Prof Honohan was to give existing bank shareholders a stake in Nama to allow them recover equity if Nama made profits.”
Ms Burton said that the proposed model seemed to be nothing like that.
The Government would have to give a very full justification before the Labour Party would be minded to support it, she added.