Almost 1.5 million people earn less than the €38,000 pay increase awarded to Bertie Ahern, it has emerged. Paul Cullenreports.
Labour TD Ciarán Lynch asked Minister for Finance Brian Cowen in a Dáil question the number of taxpayers who returned incomes of €38,000 or less last year.
In his reply, Mr Cowen said the Revenue Commissioners' estimate for the numbers earning gross income less than €38,000 was 1,452,000.
Gross income is income before adjustments are made for capital allowances, interest paid and expenses, but after deduction of pension contributions by employees, he said. Married couples who are jointly assessed are treated as one tax unit.
Mr Lynch accused the Taoiseach of trying to brazen out the controversy over his salary increase and said the figures showed that Mr Ahern was completely out of touch.
"Pay increases should be only awarded when there has been a demonstrable increase in productivity, and when you look at how this Government has been stumbling from one fiasco to the next, whether it be Aer Lingus in Shannon, provisional driving licences, incinerators or cancer care, nobody can seriously suggest that such a raise is in any way justified.
"€38,000 is not a pay increase: it is a salary. Unlike the Taoiseach, people earning such a salary are all too often slaves to their mortgages; over-borrowed to meet the demands of day-to-day living; overworked dealing with the increasing cost of living, overcharged for childcare and overstretched and stressed in trying to afford to buy a home. That is something that cannot be said of the current Taoiseach."