Perhaps unsurprisingly, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has confirmed that the full 1pc cut to the USC promised in Fine Gael’s pre-election manifesto is not going to happen.
The minister has put his big red pen to work and began crossing out the lines in the manifesto that are no longer convenient, saying instead that himself and his colleagues are now working on the basis of a ‘Programme for Government’, rather than the manifesto.
Before the election, the man who turned down a 13bn gift from heaven proclaimed that the ‘interim’ USC would be cut by a full 1pc in the upcoming budget, a move which would have saved workers an average of €500.
However, it is understood that the cut will now be much smaller, in line with the ‘Programme for Government’.