FF Tax & Spend Wish list will Kill 200k Jobs & Punch €1.4bn Hole in Public Finances – Harris

No Credible Jobs Plan Means Tax & Spend Plan Meaningless
Fine Gael Minister, Simon Harris has expressed amazement that Fianna Fail would publish little more than a tax and spend wish list without a credible plan to grow jobs. He said that the absence of a detailed Fianna Fail jobs plan meant that the 200,000 extra jobs that Fine Gael’s Plan would deliver for the country by 2020 would not be realized. This would leave the ambition of full employment by 2020 in tatters and any resources for extra public services would be hugely reduced. At the very least, the €1.4bn in resources generated by getting 70,000 people off the Live Register (integral part of FG Jobs Plan) and back in to work would be jeopardized.
The Minister was speaking following the launch of Fianna Fail’s so called economic strategy this morning.
‘Fianna Fail’s so called plan will cost Ireland 200,000 additional jobs and demolish our capacity to invest in better services in the years to come. Having destroyed 300,000 jobs when they were last in office have Fianna Fail learned nothing from the crash and their failure to focus relentlessly on job creation? Fine Gael has learned the lessons of Fianna Fail’s mistakes and that is why we have a Long Term Economic Plan that has three interlinked Steps. They are; Step 1 – create more and better jobs, Step 2 – make sure that work pays and then Step 3 – invest in better services.
‘The first Step, and central to the whole plan, is to generate 200,000 extra jobs by 2020. Fine Gael has published Action Plans for Jobs each year in Government as well as plans on Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Skills, FDI Strategies and Regional Plans for each of the 8 regions of the country. That is how you drive jobs growth in the country, with detailed, target driven plans that are implemented and make life incrementally better for the entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their companies and grow jobs by extension.
“Today Fianna Fail launched a document containing no jobs targets, no credible job creation measures and no timetable or implementation plan. There is no detail – just a wish list of tax measures and generic platitudes about the economy. After relying so heavily on the construction sector and the public sector for jobs growth in the period to 2000-2007 it seems they still haven’t learned what a small open economy like Ireland needs.
“In fact, Fianna Fail has not outlined how they would add a single job. Fine Gael has an ambitious jobs target in our Long-Term Economic Plan to add 200,000 more jobs by 2020.
“In fact, one of the few specifics that Fianna Fail’s document confirms is that they will retain a 52% marginal income tax rate. Fine Gael, who understand that high taxes hurt job creation, will ensure that every worker pays less than 50% and that those middle income earners will pay 44%. That is why Fine Gael is committed to the USC’s abolition, because Fianna Fail don’t understand or appreciate this link they don’t want to abolish this punitive tax.
‘Fianna Fail just hasn’t learned and will jeopardize the recovery that has been so hard to construct.’