In 2017, Sinn Féin TD and finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said that his party opposed abolishing the Universal Service Charge (USC).
The USC has been a topic of discussion lately, as Fine Gael Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe claimed he had never said the charge would be temporary – a claim which Gript fact checked and found to be false.
Speaking in the Dáil in 2017, Sinn Féin’s Doherty had slammed the government and Donohoe for their proposal to abolish the charge.
“[Fianna Fáil promised that] it wanted to abolish 90% of the USC,” the Sinn Féin TD said.
“Fine Gael wanted to go the full hog and abolish 100%, which would erode more than €4 billion of our tax base. By 2021, with no policy changes, this tax would bring in €5.2 billion per year.”
“…Will the Minister state categorically the USC tax base, on which the State depended on until now, will not be eroded in the way presented by the Government and by Fine Gael, which showed abolishing the USC would cost the State up to €4 billion?”
Doherty went on to accuse Donohoe of taking a “populist position in the general election” of abolishing the charge, which he dubbed “reckless.”
“We [Sinn Féin] said not to abolish the USC,” he added.
Abolishing the €4billion USC was never possible it was a populist election policy from FG, FF & Lab. Sinn Féin proved right again. pic.twitter.com/IriU5Tq51T
— Pearse Doherty (@PearseDoherty) July 6, 2017
The real news here is that SF pointing out to FG/FF that USC cuts reckless & minister refuses policy risk analysis
— Pearse Doherty (@PearseDoherty) May 18, 2016