The Government should address in future budget concerns about the number of people moving into the higher income-tax band, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said yesterday.
With some 50,000 workers moving into the 42 per cent tax band after the Budget, Ms Harney told the Dáil she recognised concerns about the number of people paying the higher rate while on marginal income.
She was speaking as the Government mounted a robust defence of the Budget within and outside the Dáil in the face of sustained opposition criticism.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said the Budget meant the Government was looking forward to entering a period of resumed economic growth with no additional debt.
However, the Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said the Government was a high-tax administration because 52 per cent of taxpayers would be paying the higher income tax rate after the Budget. The failure to increase the threshold for the upper rate meant the Government was moving towards the creation of the standard tax rate of 42 per cent.
But at a social function last evening the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, accused the opposition of ritual hand-wringing, breast-beating and "sanctimonious, stomach-churning hypocrisy".
"Because they have always believed in high-tax, high-spend, high-unemployment policies - and still do - we sometimes need to pinch ourselves to make sure that their published statements are not some form of political hallucination or nightmare."
The Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, told the Dáil the increased cost of living had eaten up the Celtic tiger gains for those on the average industrial wage.
Fine Gael also accused rural Ministers of engaging in an asset-stripping exercise in Dublin for their own political purposes.
The party's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Gay Mitchell, said the decentralisation programme lacked strategic analysis.
"If Dublin is so difficult and costly why do Dublin's children get only the same child benefit as less costly parts of the country? Why no pay weighting for Dublin dwellers?
"Dublin needs careful investment and a planned future, not a further assault on its infrastructure to buttress an incompetent and unpopular Government in the bailiwick of TDs who happen also to be Ministers. Dublin deserves better," he said.
Labour's justice spokesman, Mr Joe Costello, said the Budget was a non-event from the perspective of those fighting crime. "The Minister for Finance failed to support youth crime prevention programmes and services," he said.
The leader of the Greens, Mr Trevor Sargent, said the Government had all but ripped up the National Spatial Strategy. "Only one out of the nine towns (Mullingar) selected for new departmental headquarters is identified as a gateway town within the National Spatial Strategy. We welcome investment in the regions, but not in a haphazard and flawed manner," he said.
