Lucinda Creighton at the launch of Renua’s pre-budget submission yesterday at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin
Um.
You may recall how yesterday Lucinda Creighton announced Renua’s proposed tax plans which include a 23% flat tax and tax rebates, on a sliding scale, for those on welfare and lower income.
Under the proposals the disposable income of those on middle and higher incomes would increase. But those on the minimum wage would earn less.
This morning, Ms Creighton spoke to Seán O’Rourke about the proposals. Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty also took part in the discussion.
Seán O’Rourke: “Is Pearse Doherty right when he says you’re going to have people on the minimum wage paying more?”
Lucinda Creighton: “No, what we are proposing, at the moment, anybody who’s on the minimum wage, is in a trap. So if they receive a €10 increase, which amounts to, a €10-a-week increase, which amounts to €520 – rather than benefiting from that pay increase, they actually end up being worse off in terms of their net take home pay, so they actually end up being down €8, rather than up €10 or part of the €10. Under our proposal, for every extra euro that that person earns, for every extra hour that they work, they will be rewarded. They will be incentivised to work harder. There are incentives for employees [sic] to pay people better and there are incentives for people to actually take and accept pay rises. At the moment, there is no incentive because you lose money because of our bizarre PRSI system, you lose money on the minimum wage if you…”
O’Rourke: “But are you going to retain the present tax exemptions so that the credits that are there for people on low income.”
Creighton: “No, we’re not retaining tax credits. What we are proposing is a direct payment, a graduated basic income for everybody who is a low earner and that’s phased out or graduated out, up to an earning income level of €70,000 and that simplifies the system. It means people can see on their payslip what they’re receiving, what they’re contributing and everybody is incentivised to work. We have to make work pay. People pay lip service to it.”
Read Renua’s submission in full here
Listen back in full here
Previously: Way To Go
Mark Stedman/Rollingnews.ie
