ECONOMIC COMMENTATORS are perpetuating a “myth” that large-scale cuts to public services must be implemented in the upcoming budget, according to Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin.
At his party’s think-in in Dublin yesterday, Mr Ó Caoláin said Sinn Féin favoured an “equitable and just” tax system and announced a pre-budget rally on Saturday December 4th against cuts he warned would that take the very life blood out of the Irish economy.
“Many economic commentators would have us believe that savage cuts to vital public services are inevitable. That is not the case and we state that with absolute certainty . . . and those commentators would need to be looking very seriously at the role they’re playing in perpetuating this myth.”
Mr Ó Caoláin said what he described as the “softening-up” of the electorate in preparation for cuts had already begun.
He insisted there was an alternative. He said people escaping their tax responsibilities should pay their fair share. Moreover, those who could afford to pay more should do so to protect public services and the jobs of public servants.
“We want to ensure quality public services and it cannot be done [unless] we are prepared to fund it,” he said.
Pressed to explain who he believed could now afford to pay extra tax, he said: “Those who are in wealthy positions, those who are not paying their fair share, those who use residency clauses as a method of escape by virtue of the period of time in any given year that they live outside this country, yet they’re very happy to use the benefits of the rest of our contributions in terms of the provision of State needs.”
He added: “Sinn Féin have always . . . opposed the drops in taxation that the former PD party and their influence within the current major party in Government, Fianna Fáil, have decided as the way forward. We totally and absolutely reject that.”
Mr Ó Caoláin described the Government’s response to the recession as “criminally incompetent” and that its legacy would be toxic.
He claimed the bank guarantee scheme was allowing banks to continue to exploit customers with “excessive interest rates, massive mortgage debt and a credit famine on viable businesses”.
He said the growing number of unemployed people were not the only ones suffering as a result of the economic downturn. “Many, many people with low to medium incomes are absolutely struggling to make ends meet.”
Anglo Irish Bank should have been closed down and a “strong State bank” should be established.
“The zombie Anglo Irish Bank should have been wound up and the gamblers who bet on it should have taken the hit, not the ordinary taxpayer.”
Sinn Féin is also proposing a commission be established to examine “responsible and economically safe” methods of dismantling the National Asset Management Agency, which Mr Ó Caoláin described as “another huge imposition on the Irish people courtesy of Fianna Fáil and the Greens”.
