Aontú has called for a €10 per week increase in the State pension in its pre-budget submission, proposing the increase be introduced next year.
The party say the pension age should remain at 66, while they also called for an auto-enrolment pension scheme, which would require all employers to automatically enrol staff into a pension scheme, from 2022.
Aontú’s submission was published on Saturday ahead of Budget 2022 on Tuesday.
The party also said it would ncrease Garda numbers to 16,500 personnel, invest in drug rehabilitation and detox services, and allocate funding for body cameras to be provided for frontline gardaí.
“Ireland is increasingly divided, with every passing day,” Aontú’s submission says.
“It is divided by how much you earn, by where you live, whether you live in Dublin or in the rest of country, whether you have public healthcare or private healthcare, whether you have a disability or not, whether you rent or own your own home.
“The Ireland of today is not just divided by partition, but by region, income and background. The cost of living and social inequality in this country is dictating the quality of life you can live here.
“This division is the result of the fact that none of the crises of the past decade have been resolved. If you measure Ireland in terms of the cost and availability of housing, health waiting lists, spatial imbalance leading to a commuter hell, the extortionate cost of living etc, these are worse than 10 years ago.”
