Over two million people are likely to be paying more income tax when the new government cuts the number of tax bands from four to two, according to calculations by the national statistics office CBS.

People earning less than €2,000 a month will pay tax of 36.93% rather than the 36.55% they currently pay, the CBS said. Last year, 2.1 million earned less than that amount per month, according to CBS figures.

However, 5.4 million people will see their take-home pay rise because of the changes – their salary over €2,000 will also be taxed at 36.55%, rather than 40.4%. The new top rate of tax, which starts at income over €66,423, has been cut from 52% to 49.5%.