Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has told party members that taxes will have to go up if Ireland is to reach its target of reducing the deficit to 3 per cent of national income by 2014.
Speaking at a Labour meeting in Castlebar yesterday, Mr Gilmore appeared to suggest that the party may be not fully opposed to other income taxes.
But he would not commit himself publicly to any measures besides a new 48 per cent tax rate for those earning over €100,000 – the only one to which he has made a public commitment.
In a newspaper interview last week – and in subsequent public comments - Mr Gilmore said he would not punish middle income earners, which was widely interpreted as a refusal to introduce any other income taxes besides the new 48 per cent rate for high earners.
In a speech to the Labour meeting, he acknowledged that the next Government would have to make extremely hard decisions.
“I cannot promise that every cutback will be reversed, because it won’t. I cannot promise that very individual decision that the next Government will make will be easy.”
Responding to criticisms that the party has refused to specify its plans, he said: “Of course, we all know that there are hard decisions to make, and we all know that taxes are going up – we see that.”
He told The Irish Times that a mix of measures would have to adopted including capital spending reductions and cuts in public expenditure.
“The third [measure] is on the revenue side which means that taxation has to be part of the solution. Last year we proposed a third rate of tax for incomes over €100,000,” he said. “When we have the briefing given to us by the Department of Finance we will do a pre-budget submission for 2011 the same as we did.”
Asked was he ruling out other income taxes, he said he could not predict what the submission would contain.
“We have given a fairly clear indication of our approach to it. Our approach is that whatever will have to be done will have to be done fairly. On taxation we have always been clear is that those who are in the best position should be the first to be asked to pay,” he said.
