Ireland to raise ‘minimum wage’

DUBLIN: Ireland’s senior coalition party will ensure high earners do not make "extravagant gains" from planned income tax cuts and also raise the minimum wage by 15 percent by 2021 if re-elected, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Sunday.

Ireland votes on Feb 26 in what promises to be a tight contest dominated by debate over how the resources freed up by a strong economic recovery should be spent and how or whether an unpopular additional tax levied on income, the Universal Social Charge (USC), should be unwound.

Noonan’s Fine Gael, comfortably ahead in opinion polls that nevertheless suggest it may struggle to form a coalition, plans to abolish the tax brought in during the financial crisis.

On Sunday Noonan outlined how the state would claw back some of the gains with a new five percent levy on incomes over 100,000 euros.