Cheaper pints, a new border agency and a junior minister for waste feature in Aontú’s election pledges.
Peadar Tóibín, the party’s leader and only representative in the now-dissolved Dáil, launched Aontú’s manifesto on Thursday morning.
Aontú, which describes its document as a “common-sense manifesto” focused on accountability, would establish a new junior minister to tackle waste in public spending.
Mr Tóibín emphasised a series of controversies around public spending, including spiralling costs of the national children’s hospital, the €336,000 bike shed at Leinster House, and the €1.4 million security hut at Government Buildings.
He said a Taoiseach “who wasted so much money” would have been fired if they were in the private sector.
It said the new junior minister would have direct responsibility for “eradicating waste” in the public sector.
The party would also introduce new disciplinary measures in the job specifications for senior civil servants over public spending.
The party said it will adhere to a 5 per cent spending growth limit, cap childcare costs at €100 per week, and provide a second means-tested child benefit to lift 40,000 children out of poverty, the latter move costing €700 million.
It would cut VAT in restaurants and pubs from 13.5 per cent to 9 per cent, at an expected cost of €545 million.
Mr Tóibín added that the party wanted to “help” Irish pubs by reducing the 10c charge per unit of alcohol sold in a pub.
He said: “I do believe a unit of alcohol consumed in a pub is a healthier pint, there’s a social dimension to it and a certain level of supervision in terms of quantities.”
Meanwhile, Aontú said it wanted to support the creation of a new “international city” on the west coast of Ireland.
However, Mr Tóibín said he did not want to say where exactly the city should be.
Aontú would scrap the USC for all incomes below 50,000 in the next five years, at a cost of €1.9 billion.
It pledged to zero rate VAT on electricity while “prices remain high”.
On abortion, the party said it is committed to respectfully campaigning on its “right-to-life” stance.
Aontú said it would provide child benefit to mothers from four months into pregnancy, at a cost of €60 million.
However, Mr Tóibín said the issue of abortion was “not coming up in the doors at all”.
On housing, Aontú said if elected to Government it would deliver 15,000 social and affordable homes per year, zero rate construction materials and an “end to eternal regulation change”.
It said it would spend €350 million to build accommodation specifically to key workers, nurses, doctors, teachers, gardaí and construction workers, back to Ireland in a scheme the party has codenamed Operation Shamrock, while also providing returnees with a €5,000 relocation package and €10,000 tax credit.
Asked why the document does not have a section on the environment, Mr Tóibín said the “environment is threaded through that document” and added that the party recognised there were negative consequences to man-made climate change.
Elsehwere, the party would cut excise duty on petrol and diesel, halt increases in carbon taxes, and cut road tolls.
Mr Tóibín added: “Climate change is a priority to us.”
On immigration, Aontú has pledged to create a new agency for “border control, processing of applications and enforcement” while also promising the creation of a border in the Irish Sea for the movement of people.
It would reinstate planning restrictions around centres for asylum seekers, implement a “community dividend” for areas where migrants are hosted, and “enforce deportations”.
Mr Tóibín accused Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman of being a “hypocrite” over planning laws, given that a members of his Green Party had objected to housing developments.
Aontú also said the minimum wage should reflect the living wage of €14.80 per hour, with additional considerations for those in the greater Dublin area.
The party said it would spend €348 million by recruiting 4,000 more gardaí, adding that it opposes deregulation around drug use.
Copies of the manifesto were only made available to reporters 40 minutes into the party’s launch, having not been printed and stapled in time for the start of the event.
Mr Tóibín said: “Aontú is the only party that is not State funded in relation to this and i.e. does not have the staff other political parties have – and the content of the document is very detailed, an enormous amount of work was done.”
Asked about Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin ruling out a future coalition agreement with Aontú over what he described as “arrogant and ignorant” comments from Mr Tóibín, he added: “Given the housing crisis that we’re in, given the health crisis that we’re in, the spatial issues, the cost-of-living crisis, that a bruised ego of a politician should not get in the way of Government talks.”
