Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said that the moment has come “where history meets opportunity” at the launch of her party’s general election manifesto.
Ms McDonald launched the manifesto on Tuesday morning, flanked by senior party members.
The party is promising to abolish the USC for those earning up to €45,000, to increase the minimum wage, end long-term homelessness by 2030, deliver 300,000 new homes by 2029, abolish the €500 million local property tax, introduce €10-a-day childcare and reduce the term of the Office of the President from the current seven years to five years.
A pledge made in 2020 to cut the pay of TDs and Senators appears to have been dropped, however, while McDonald also defended her plans for a review of RTÉ's coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. Fine Gael accused Sinn Féin of political interference “in the independence and editorial process of our public service broadcaster”.
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Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe also said the Sinn Féin figures “don’t add up for five years. You cannot narrow the tax base to this extent without tax receipts falling away.”
Speaking on Tuesday, Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty confirmed that his party wants to abolish the property tax, which brings in about €500 million a year or 7 per cent of local Government revenue. He confirmed this would leave local authorities with a “gap in their funding” and that Sinn Féin would directly pay this back to local authorities through government expenditure.
Ms McDonald said on Tuesday that she will not step down if her party fares badly in the election.
The Social Democrats in government would introduce a €1 offpeak fare for public transport, free public travel for children under 18 and would “throw everything at public transport”.
The party has also pledged to deliver 50,000 affordable purchase houses, 25,000 affordable rental homes and 70,000 social homes over the lifetime of the next government.
It would offer no income tax cuts or reductions in the USC and deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan said his party was being “very upfront” as he warned that what other party leaders were promising in terms of “huge investment in public services and very positive tax cuts at the same time” is “absolutely not credible”.
Its tax measures include a tax increase on incomes above €400,000 and a tax on “super wealth”, at 0.5 per cent on assets more than €1 million but excluding family homes and farmland. It would also increase betting tax both online and in-shop. It would begin phasing out subsidies for housing developers and remove tax exemptions for REITS and other institutional investors.
Fianna Fáil has pledged in its education policies to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio at primary school classes and keep third level student registration fees at €2,000, among other promises.
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