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Irish budget: Michael Noonan says Ireland is on new path | |
(about 7 hours later) | |
Ireland is "on a new path" and the top priority is to keep recovery growing, the Irish finance minister has said. | |
Michael Noonan announced a series of tax cuts and spending increases in Ireland's last budget before an election. | |
The country exited its international bailout programme in 2013 and is now Europe's fastest growing economy. | The country exited its international bailout programme in 2013 and is now Europe's fastest growing economy. |
He told the Dáil on Tuesday that the government was on track to recover all of the jobs lost in the "bust" years. | |
There would be no more booms and no busts, he told politicians. | |
About 1,100 jobs are being created every week, Mr Noonan said in his budget speech. | |
"Our people are in a much stronger and certain position than 2011," he said. | |
"We are on track to recover all of the jobs lost and have more people working by the end of this decade than ever before." | |
The governing coalition had indicated that there would be a modest giveaway of about 1.5bn euro (£1.1bn). | |
Mr Noonan said he would cut the unpopular Universal Social Charge (USC) which is sometimes called "the bailout tax". | |
The threshold at which people pay USC is to rise to 13,000 euros (£9,646), he said. | |
The cuts in personal taxation would mean an extra week's wage at every point of income, he told politicians. | |
The changes would mean a one-income family with two children earning 35,000 euros (£26,182) will see their take home pay increase by 57 euros (£42) a month due to this budget, he said. | |
He has also reduced capital gains tax and raised the threshold at which inheritance tax is paid. | |
The minister said the pension fund levy had "done its job" and would end this year. | |
Mr Noonan said the 9% VAT rate for the tourism sector would not change despite the fact that the need for it is diminishing each year. | |
He announced plans to make it easier to transfer farm ownership. | |
He also said that road tax for large good vehicles was too high compared to that in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Rates would be simplified and reduced to five new rates, he said. | |
Mr Noonan also announced more details of a "knowledge box" corporation tax rate. That will allow profits related to patents and software copyrights to be taxed at a rate of 6.25%. The UK "patent box" system is set at a rate of 10%. | |
He said Nama would deliver 20,000 new residential units before the end of 2020 - 90% of these will be in greater Dublin and about 75% will be houses, mainly starter homes. | |
The finance minister said this budget would "give certainty to the Irish people of a better future". | |