Budget 2013 will do little or nothing for jobs and has penalised working families in order to subsidise business and employers, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has said.
Responding to Budget 2013, Congress General Secretary David Begg said: 'the budget could cost us up to 40,000 jobs, due to the ongoing extraction of money from the economy.
'the money taken from the pockets of working families is money that will not be spent in local shops and on local services and will cost us jobs.
'the abolition of the PRSI Allowance is particularly harsh and sees working families lose €5 per week," Mr Begg said.
"In effect, this budget could cost working families up to €1000 per year, in terms of increased taxes and charges. What makes this particularly unfair is that families with an income of €30,000 will pay the same as those on €300,000.
"Congress believes this cut must be reversed.
"In addition, the cut in Jobseekers" Allowance payment from 12 months to nine means that working people are getting less benefits from the system while their contributions have increased.
"Meanwhile, business has not been asked to pay more - instead we have seen a package to tax breaks that will do nothing for domestic demand and job creation," Mr Begg said.
He said that there was some progress on the tax treatment of unearned income, and pensions, although he described the measures as 'somewhat timid."
Mr Begg pointed out after six austerity budgets we had seen some 360,000 jobs lost, some €28 billion extracted from the economy and we have made minimal impact on the deficit.
