Madam, - Pat Rabbitte's brazen attempt to take credit for Ireland's low rates of Corporation Tax (August 4th) is yet another Orwellian effort by the Labour Party Leader to rewrite his political history.
It was Charlie McCreevy back in 1998, as Minister for Finance, who agreed with the EU that we would reduce our rate of Corporation Tax to 12.5 per cent by 2003.
For all of its criticism of Mr McCreevy, it now seems the Labour Party is at last prepared to admit that the attainment of this rate in Budget 2003 while still increasing our corporation tax base was a sizeable achievement.
This far-sighted decision has yielded over €5 billion in revenue, up from €2 billion when the rate was 36 per cent in 1997. More importantly still, the reductions in Corporation Tax implemented by Fianna Fáil in Government also helped to create and safeguard record levels of employment.
It is humbug for Pat Rabbitte to write that the Labour Party has "consistently defended the decision" to cut Corporation Tax to 12.5 per cent. After the Budget of December 2001 the Labour Party spokesperson on finance vehemently complained about Mr McCreevy's low-tax philosophy and suggested he had "torn the guts out of the tax base". In particular, the spokesperson derided the fact that the Minister for Finance had "almost halved Corporation Tax" and suggested that the Labour Party would "have to look at some of that, certainly" if it was in government.
Combined with this flip-flop attitude of the Labour Party to Corporation Tax is Pat Rabbitte's willingness to enter a coalition with the Green Party. It is the stated policy of the Greens to increase Corporation Tax to 17.5 per cent. - Yours, etc.,
SEAN FLEMING, TD, Dáil Éireann, Dublin 2.