Sinn Fein has pledged to abolish the universal social charge (USC) for average workers, reduce childcare costs to 10 euro per day, and abolish the TV licence, as part of its alternative budget.
The party said it will “undo the damage” of previous governments, while ramping up public spending.
The document, published on Thursday, set outs the party’s budget plans, with a lot of focus on measures for families in an attempt to reduce everyday costs.
Pearse Doherty, the party’s finance spokesman, said it is a budget package of 12.4 billion euro, including 7.3 billion euro of new measures.
Sinn Fein health spokesman David Cullinane, public expenditure and reform spokeswoman Rose Conway-Walsh, president Mary Lou McDonald and finance spokesman Pearse Doherty (Brian Lawless/PA)
“In this document you’re not going to see bike shelters for 336,000 euros. You’re not going to see security huts for 1.4 million euro and you’re not going to see runaway projects like the Children’s Hospital, costing us now 2.2 billion euro,” he said.
“That happens under (Minister for Public Expenditure) Paschal Donohoe and Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.
“Sinn Fein knows that your money needs to be invested and needs to be spent wisely.”
Launching the 57-page plan at the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin, Mr Doherty said it includes an additional four billion euro of capital investment.
“As we know that the Government have failed to meet their own capital investment targets over the last number of years, targets that they set out.
“The National Development Plan set out annual targets and they have been missed every year. The under-investment from those missed targets is approximately 7.6 billion euro in capital investment over the last four years alone.”
As part of their cost-of-living package, they party said they will provide 450 euro electricity credits to householders; a double child benefit payment in October and December; reverse excise duty on petrol and diesel; reduce student fees by 1,500 euro and abolish the TV licence.
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The party said it will reduce childcare costs for parents to 10 euro a day in centre-based care and Tusla registered childminders, rolling out fully to childminders thereafter, at a cost of 35 million euro.
As part of its healthcare package, the party said it would also reduce the cost of medicine by lowering the maximum monthly drugs payments by households from 80 euro to 50 euro, and reduce prescription charges and extend the medical card to 150,000 additional people.
The party said it would also put one billion euro of the Apple tax money into a community fund to invest in working class communities.
As part of the party’s alternative budget plan, it said it will increase the minimum wage by 1.10 euro and increase child benefit by 10 euro, at a cost of 152.60 million euro.
The party said it would also provide funding for 1,000 garda recruits in 2025 and increase the garda trainee allowance of 30%.
It said it would also tax wealth emissions via a levy on private jets, which would raise 18 million euro.
Mr Doherty said his party is committed to abolishing the USC on the first 45,000 euro that every worker in the State earns.
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“The alternative budget process allows us to show how we would invest in the future.
“This is a fully costed set of budget proposals, and no other opposition party provides the level of detail for voters.”
Mr Doherty accused the Government of failing to provide the projected surplus for the year.
The Donegal TD said it will be “quite substantial”, and could be as much as eight billion euro.
“This is the first time that we’ve ever gone into an alternative budget where the Government has not given or published what the expected surplus is,” he added.
“They have refused to provide any information in relation to what’s called the general government balance, which is the projected surplus measure.
“This is unheard of. In my view, I think it’s anti-democratic. It’s not acceptable. But what they have said is they expected the surplus in the region of about six billion euro.
Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald at the launch of the alternative Budget (Brian Lawless/PA)
“We know that that figure is no longer accurate, because that was before we seen the most recent tax receipts, where they expected an increase of tax receipts compared to next year.
“We’re already two billion ahead of that, so therefore the service will go up and if that trend is continued for the remainder of the year, then it will go up even further.”
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said their budget plan is fully costed and presents the “necessary investments” for the country.
She said that many people are “desperate” for change.
“We have 14,000 people in emergency accommodation, more than 4,000 of those are children. That’s pretty desperate,” she added.
“Our young people are voting with their feet. They’re leaving. They’re in Toronto and Perth and Boston, and many who are away don’t have any real prospect of coming back.
“So we are in desperate need of a change of government. We are very clear that we have to be setting out choices for people.
“We have to make clear to people that we live in the real world, that unlike the Government, we’re not sloppy and negligent with public money, that we know the value of a euro.
“We certainly know the value of 336,000 euros and 1.5 million euros, and we recognise that in areas of childcare, health and cost of living, things need to change.”