The pension levy on public service workers announced by An Taoiseach Brian Cowen last week is just an extra tax by another name, Fine Gael Deputy Michael D’Arcy says.

“It’s effectively a 7% additional tax on the incomes of hundreds of thousands of  people engaged at every level of public service,” he said.    Deputy D’Arcy said he’s been inundated with letters, e-mails and phone calls from hundreds of people working across all public service sectors in Co. Wexford.  “There’s a huge amount of anger over this levy and the hardship it will cause.

“Fine Gael proposed all along that only those earning over €100,000 per year be levied.  It makes no sense that while on the one hand the Government wants people to get out there and spend to keep the economy going, they are lopping off a sizeable amount of their income,” he said.

“Fine Gael believe there are hundreds of million of euro to be saved in different areas, the most obvious is the freezing of all increments and bonuses in all State agencies,” Deputy D’Arcy declared.  “The Government is saying one thing and doing another – talking about keeping the economy moving but then taking money out by reducing funding to programmes like the Sports Capital grants.”