Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has welcomed reports today that Fianna F\u00e1il leader Miche\u00e1l Martin believes scrapping the Universal Social Charge (USC) makes no sense.<\/p>\n
The Sinn F\u00e9in TD claimed that Martin\u2019s remarks on the issue are an admission that his manifesto for last year\u2019s general election was based on a populist and highly questionable fiscal policy and signalled another policy U-turn.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cFresh out of the controversy over Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s back down on water charges and their capitulation to Fine Gael, recent revelations by Fianna F\u00e1il leader Miche\u00e1l Martin on the USC highlights once again their lack of any firm commitment when it comes to key policy decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis bald admission that his party\u2019s manifesto was based on a populist commitment to abolish 90% of the revenue generated by the USC should come as no surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiche\u00e1l Martin\u2019s comments are another reminder that there is very little in policy difference between Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il. They both tried to peddle the myth that quality public services can be somehow delivered while hacking away at the country\u2019s tax base.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year Fianna F\u00e1il candidates stood on an election platform that would have supposedly cut \u20ac2.64bn of the USC.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy party, Sinn F\u00e9in, said that this was not possible if you wanted to make the necessary investment to tackle the ongoing crises in our public services .It didn\u2019t add up and Miche\u00e1l Martin now admits that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy 2021 the USC will be delivering \u20ac5.2bn of funding to our infrastructure and public spending. The ideological commitment of Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael to abolish that income never made sense but they jockeyed each other to lie to the electorate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbolishing the USC would have soaked up 40% of the available fiscal space over the coming years and would have had to be replaced \u00a0by some other tax.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I welcome Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s move away from this populist and irresponsible policy, as we have seen on water charges and other issues, Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s continues to lack any firm commitment when it comes to key policy decisions. They will say or do anything to get elected and then row back on commitments when they get into office.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has welcomed reports today that Fianna F\u00e1il leader Miche\u00e1l Martin believes scrapping the Universal Social Charge (USC) makes no sense. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD claimed that Martin\u2019s remarks on the issue are an admission that his manifesto for last year\u2019s general election was based on a populist and highly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[315,314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fianna-fail","category-usc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3092,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091\/revisions\/3092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}