After weeks of pressure over the water debacle, Government leaders have mounted co-ordinated attacks against the Opposition on economic and political grounds.
Sinn Féin bore the brunt of the assault by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tánaiste Joan Burton and Minister for Finance Micheal Noonan, but Noonan targeted Fianna Fáil and the hard left too. Although the election could still be 17 months away, the Coalition is adopting an offensive posture as it seeks to regain the initiative.
The plan is clear: draw as much of a contrast between its tax-cutting agenda and the leftist tax-raising policies of the Opposition – and repeat ad nauseam. In the immediate sense, the objective is to claim back the income tax package in Budget 2015 which will deliver cuts in the new year. While that was obscured in the dithering on water, Kenny has promised another cut in 2016 and more of the same if re-elected.
If it all sounds like opening shots for the election campaign, it’s a measure of the damage done to the Government’s authority that it sees the need to step up a gear. The basic message is confined to income tax for now, but this is ground on which it feels secure.
Sitting in the Department of Finance alongside his French counterpart Michel Sapin, Noonan insisted choices before the electorate were clear. He then proceeded to take direct aim at Sinn Féin’s approach to the Finance Bill and the stance of People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd-Barrett.
Tax rate
Of Sinn Féin, Noonan said: “They’ve proposed an 8 per cent increase in the marginal rate of tax so the 40 [per cent] would go to 48 [per cent] and if you roll that on with USC and PRSI that takes you up to a 59 per cent marginal rate for PAYE people and a 62 per cent rate.”
He continued: “And then the extreme left as represented by deputy Boyd Barrett rolled that on further and ended up at a marginal rate of 75 per cent so I’m saying, if you want to see what the economic choices are, it’s there.”
If these will be the attack lines of the campaign, Noonan also sought to bring Fianna Fáil into his attack on Sinn Féin. “You can’t answer a question – ‘would you be prepared to go into coalition with Fianna Fáil?’ – because we don’t know where they stand on key issues.” At issue primarily was Éamon Ó Cuív’s willingness to enter an arrangement with Sinn Féin.
Fianna Fáil itself is no stranger to this mode of assault on the credibility of Opposition economics. Then finance minister Brian Cowen said in the 2007 election the party would borrow from former Australian prime minister Paul Keating in its attack on Fine Gael and Labour. “We intend to burn you slowly on this barbie,” Cowen said then.
Noonan has fired up the barbeque. It’s going to be a long campaign.
