Sinn Féin's "ghetto economics" would bankrupt the State and bring a return to mass emigration, Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey has claimed.
Mr Dempsey described as "fundamentally misguided" a call by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams for social spending to be doubled. Such a policy would cost an extra €13 billion a year.
"This would require a serious increase in taxation, and there is no doubt that the income tax of ordinary workers would have to increase dramatically," he said.
He was responding to a speech by Mr Adams in Kells on Thursday, which urged the next government to make investment in public services its priority.
Mr Adams said it was a lie that the Republic was a low-tax economy, because there was "massive and increasing indirect taxation". This was an unjust form of tax, he added, because it impacted most on those least able to afford it.
"Who, except the FF-PD coalition and the conservative Opposition parties, could argue against the very wealthy paying their fair share in tax?" he asked, calling for an end to all tax exemptions except where the economic and social value outweighed the cost to the Exchequer.
Mr Dempsey said Sinn Féin's pretence that it would raise tax on capital and corporations while leaving income tax untouched was unworkable.
"They will be left with no alternative but to tax incomes, but incomes will have plummeted. Why? Because of the flight of capital and corporations, there will be less investment and less jobs. So instead of exempting minimum-wage earners from the tax net, we would probably have to tax them on at least half their earnings."
Mr Dempsey added: "The reality is that with the ghetto economics of Sinn Féin, everyone would lose. The country would be bankrupt. The spectre of emigration would return. It would really be a national nightmare."
