Minister for Finance Pashcal Donohoe has insisted that he "never said" the Universal Social Charge was temporary.
The charge was introduced as an "emergency measure" by the Late Brian Lenihan back in 2011.
About €4.4bn per year is bought in for the Exchequer due to the Universal Social Charge.
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, the Minister for Finance said USC "will remain part of our taxation system".
He said: "I never said the Universal Social Charge was temporary. That's never a point I've made.
"If you look at the USC, the USC involved the integration of two levies - the health and income levy - which were longstanding parts of our personal tax code at that point.
"I've never indicated otherwise.
"The Universal Social Charge will remain part of our taxation system
"Anybody who indicates to you that at this point, particularly at this point with 234 billion of national debt post Covid-19, that we can now remove Universal Social Charge, needs to explain how we will find the many other billions that it collects every year."
Leading up to the 2016 general election, Leo Varadkar tweeted saying that Fine Gael would abolish USC over the lifetime of the next Government.
The party repeatedly said they would abolish the "hated" tax and during the 2016 campaign they said they were "in a position to do so".
Former Fine Gael Minister Paudie Coffey said in January 2016: "Fine Gael wants to make work pay; we are committed to implement policies, initiatives and plans to increase the number of people at work by 200,000 by 2020.
"This will allow us to firstly reduce and then abolish Fianna Fail’s hated USC tax.
"Voters will have a stark choice between stability and chaos in a few weeks’ time.
"We as a nation have come through the worst financial crash to ever hit Ireland; now is the time to secure the recovery.
"We are in a position to abolish the USC because of the extra number of people at work and Fine Gael has a Long Term Economic Plan to keep the recovery going that will create 200,000 additional jobs by 2020.”
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