The Government has an undeserved reputation for sound fiscal management, the Labour party has said.
The opposition party launched a broadside against the coalition on Friday, saying Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are “conservatives crippled by ideology”.
Labour finance spokesman Ged Nash said the Government lacked ambition and was “not ashamed enough of child poverty”.
He was speaking as Labour launched its alternative budget for 2025, featuring €5 billion in additional spending over what the Government will announce in the official Budget on Tuesday.
Homelessness figures released from the Department of Housing today once again make for shocking reading.
🌹 Labour’s Renter’s Rights Bill involves the end of no fault evictions - one of the most common triggers behind homelessness in Ireland. pic.twitter.com/313oIobgA8Advertisement— Ivana Bacik (@ivanabacik) September 27, 2024
The document includes a doubling of the rent tax credit to €1,500 this year and next, and €300 in energy credits.
The party wants to increase the minimum wage by one euro, and ban reduced pay rates for younger workers.
On the €14 billion Apple windfall, Labour wants to spend €6 billion on seeding a State construction company and suggests a further one billion should be spent on water infrastructure and land servicing.
The remainder would be divided between Sláintecare and climate measures such as public transport projects, offshore wind and the national retrofitting plan.
Party leader Ivana Bacik said the party’s platform was “an ambitious programme to address the endemic challenges that our country faces today”.
“We all know that we have resources in this country which are the envy of many of our EU neighbours, but in the Ireland of 2024 many people, even those with good jobs, with homes of their own, suffer from the cost-of-living crisis and from a lack of public infrastructure.
“And of course, those without homes suffer the most, at the sharp edge of what the President has rightly described as our ‘housing disaster’.
“It’s not just that we don’t have enough homes and that households are facing a real squeeze with expenses, we also have overwhelmed health services, creaking public transport infrastructure, and stalled capital investment, resulting from a Government content to rely on laissez faire policies, to hope for the best, rather than to step up with the necessary state investment to make a difference.”
Developing Ireland's construction workforce is a priority in our Alternative Budget published today 👉https://t.co/Qcu7mDO2ew
❝If Government are serious about ensuring a steady flow of apprentices into the sector, they must look at apprentice pay. - @marie_sherlock 🏗️ pic.twitter.com/HjBWmdf74C— The Labour Party (@labour) September 27, 2024
The party has put forward a one-off cost-of-living package worth €2.8 billion, on top of €8.2 billion in other new spending commitments.
Key proposals include the funding of 6,000 public childcare places, a full year of paid parental leave, and capping childcare costs of €50 per week.
Labour said it would build an extra 6,000 affordable and social homes per year – taking targets up to 22,000 State-funded homes.
It would also increase core social welfare payments by €20 per week.
The alternative Budget includes 4.5 per cent indexation of personal income tax bands to track wage growth as well as rates and credits, including USC rates, at a total cost of €1 billion.
Labour said it would “increase taxes on wealth rather than work” and “close loopholes that allow the rich to save millions”.
The party said it would raise €680 million through a phased 0.5 per cent increase of employer PRSI, and €395 million by withdrawing income tax credits on incomes of more than €100,000.
At the core of the document are measures to address child poverty through child benefit, and a focus on children in homelessness and care.
Meanwhile, Ms Bacik said Labour would introduce street-by-street retrofitting with free upgrades and heat pumps.
In public services, Labour wants to increase training allowances for gardaí and the Defence Forces, while also recruiting 2,000 nurses and midwives per year as well as 1,000 Garda trainees in 2025.
The party wants to make education free and introduce free GP services for all children.
Elsewhere, the party would also provide tax relief to cut gym membership costs by 20 per cent and introduce a “climate ticket” for public transport, capping costs at €9 per month.
