We’ll favour public services over tax cuts in the budget, says Leo
THE NEXT budget will give two-to-one preference to greater spending on public services over tax reductions, the Taoiseach has said. The 2:1 split is a requirement of the confidence-and-supply deal the Government agreed with Fianna Fáil in 2016.
Leo Varadkar said there would be ‘additional money for public services – and twice as much for that as for tax relief. But the details of the budget are many months away at this stage.
‘I don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past, and the most obvious mistake that was made in the past was when the economy was going well, governments, led by other parties, decided not to do the right thing and moved to spending too fast while cutting taxes too rapidly.
‘The first priority when framing the budget has to be to build on the progress that has been made on eliminating the deficit,’ he said.
This was because the country needed to be prepared for the possibility in the future that there could be a slowdown in the economy ‘or some sort of external shock’, the Taoiseach said.
He claimed past Fianna Fáil governments had sowed the seeds of the present housing and homelessness crisis. Fianna Fáil has rejected the criticism, saying housing lists only grew on Fine Gael’s watch and have continued to grow. Mr Varadkar said: ‘The important thing from my point of view is prudence, balancing the books, reducing our debt, and then after that, finding additional funding for infrastructure, additional money for public services and twice as much for that as for tax relief.’
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil spokesman on Education Thomas Byrne is seeking a meeting with Minister Richard Bruton to discuss the collapse of UK construction conglomerate Carillion and its impact on school building projects in Carlow, Meath, Wexford and Wicklow.
Last week the Sammon Group entered into protected receivership here as a result of the collapse of Carillion.
Mr Byrne said: ‘These new schools are urgently needed as many pupils and teachers are currently forced to stay in substandard accommodation.’