Fine Gael and Labour have launched their own General Election manifestos, with pledges made around tax cuts, housing, health and baby savings accounts.
Fine Gael launched its manifesto on Sunday afternoon, pledging to cut taxes by 7 billion euro and the establishment of a savings account for every newborn in Ireland, which will have a state contribution of 1,000 euro.
As part of its manifesto, Labour said parents would be able to take a full year of parental leave, as well as introducing pay-related maternity benefit.
It has proposed that mothers on maternity leave will receive social welfare benefits related to their pay rather than a weekly flat rate, and they have also pledged a public sector childcare scheme.
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The Building Better Together manifesto sets six core missions on housing, work, climate, the cost of living, health, and a charter for children’s rights.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s daily mud-throwing continued, with Minister for Finance Jack Chambers raising concerns about his coalition partner’s General Election manifesto.
The Fianna Fail politician claimed it does not allow for public sector pay increases or higher employment in the healthcare sector.
Mr Chambers said there are “significant promises on so many measures” in the lengthy document.
He said that his first analysis of its measures suggests it has not accounted for a new public sector pay deal.
Mr Chambers claimed it proposes to underfund the public sector pay deal, impacting over 400,000 workers across the country and also claimed its health proposals would lead to a five-year restriction on health posts.
“They need to be clarified with public servants about whether there is going to be a pay freeze under their proposals over the next number of years, or whether they’re going to fund a proper public sector pay deal to support public servants and public services across the economy,” Mr Chambers added.
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He also stated that he has concerns on how Fine Gael has appeared not to have accounted for the need for increased recruitment in the health service.
“We need to support public services and grow recruitment in our health service, and that doesn’t appear to be reflected in the document published by Fine Gael today,” he added.
“We cannot have a recruitment embargo in out health service and I’d have concerns from an initial reading of the Fine Gael document on health service recruitment in particular,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Sinn Fein leader has pledged to cut the price of petrol and diesel over the next five years.
Mary Lou McDonald said that Ireland has the highest taxes in Europe on petrol and diesel.
“Since 2020, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have added 12 euros to a tank of fuel, and they have committed to increase it again by a further 7 euros a tank over the next five years,” she said at an event in Dublin on Sunday.
“That is 12 cents on every litre of fuel. We in Sinn Fein are going to stop that.
“A Sinn Fein-led government will cut the price of petrol and diesel to help workers and families who are still struggling with the cost of living, and this will be a permanent reduction over the lifetime of the next government.
“This will save drivers an average of 7 euros on every tank of petrol. In order to give people immediate relief, we will also reverse the August and October increases, which added six cents to petrol and five-and-a-half cents to diesel.
“We will also offset the toll increases due to come into effect on the first of January, at a cost of 8 million euros. The cost-of-living crisis isn’t over.”