The Workers’ Party have said that when working class people hear Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and his colleagues talking
about taking “tough decisions” it invariably means that their government is about to launch another attack on
the living standards of ordinary workers and the poor.
Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan said that when it came to issues such as the unfair distribution of wealth
in this country, the soft tax regime on big business or the restricted practices of the legal and medical elite there were
no such tough decisions.
Cllr. Tynan said that despite constantly repeating the mantra that there were no exceptions to the government’s
spending cuts and tax increase, the government continued to regard the country’s exceptionally low Corporation Tax of
12.5% as a sacred cow and was completely unprepared to contemplate a Financial Transactions Tax or a Wealth Tax.
“The independent think-tank TASC has estimated that a Financial Transactions Tax of just 0.1% would bring in more
than €5.5 billion every year, yet the government completely ignores this option and is unwilling to listen to such suggestions”.
Cllr. Tynan said that the government’s “tough decisions” were reserved only for the working class
and instead of ring-fencing the poor and vulnerable from the onslaught of the EU/IMF the Fine Gael / Labour coalition were
ring-fencing the powerful and wealthy.
Issued 11th September 2012