The Taoiseach Enda Kenny has admitted that a proposal from one of his ministers to lure emigrants home with a special tax rate would be unfair and discriminatory.

The jobs minister proposed the idea in a pre-budget submission to the department of finance.

A lower 30 percent tax rate would have applied to certain categories of workers for a period of up to five years.

But after the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin described it as a “bananas idea”, Mr Kenny agreed it would not be a fair thing to introduce.

Mr Kenny said: “If somebody’s away in London or New York or America and they come back and they are working in the same facility as someone else, and they are paying a different rate of tax simply because they’ve come back, I would regard that as being unfair and discriminatory.

“I see all kinds of proposals being put forward now.”