Sir, - I see Michael McDowell is at it again. He now repeats the "Tax and Spend" mantra daily against the Labour Party in the apparent hope that someone might actually believe him.
Alas, memories of his party in Government from 1989 to 1992 are not that distant. I have a recollection of his leader on RTE declaring the 1992 Budget to be "a liberation for taxpayers". In fact that Budget resulted in a £553 million increase in taxation and a £730 million increase in public spending. By the year's end there was no increase at all in the numbers at work.
In their three years in office the PDs allowed £1.4 billion of extra taxes and £1.8 billion of extra spending with no growth in jobs to show for it in the end.
Obviously in the PDs rhetoric and record have become very distant cousins. - Yours, etc.
Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dail Eireann,
Baile Atha Cliath 2.