LAST UPDATE | 4 Oct 2023
“HOUSING IS SINN Féin’s “number one priority”, according to party leader Mary Lou McDonald.
Speaking at the launch of her party’s alternative budget today in Dublin, she said the budget package is €6.8billion total with a €1.35 billion cost-of-living package.
Cuts in the Universal Social Charge (USC), scrapping the carbon tax increase, halting toll increases and introducing a private jet tax are just some of the measures included in the alternative budget.
McDonald said the budget is aimed at anyone who doesn’t own their own home.
“Anybody who’s a sofa surfer, anybody who is living in the box room of their ma or da or grandparents’ house, anybody who is getting hammered with extortionate rent, people who are struggling and who each week doing their groceries, trying to meet their bills,” she said.
Meanwhile, housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin took aim at Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, accusing the two parties of stealing Sinn Féin’s rhetoric on housing over the last number of years.
He said the two coalition partners never had an interest in cost-rental and affordable housing until Sinn Féín began trumpeting them.
Sinn Féin maintains that if it was in government right now, the budget it would deliver next week would deliver 21,000 social and affordable homes.
The party also promises to put one month’s rent back into renters’ pockets as well as banning rent increases for three years.
Ó Broin pledged to also ensure that no person over the age of 55 would be housed in emergency accommodation as it would deliver small infill social housing developments to tackle the issue.
When asked about when the Help-to-Buy scheme would come to an end under a Sinn Féin government, party leader Mary Lou McDonald told The Journal that there would not be a cliff edge for people who had been approved already, but she said it was the wrong policy for the government to follow.
Mortgage interest relief for those facing soaring interest rates would be in place out to July under the proposals, which would cost €140 million for 2023.
It was put to Sinn Féin’s Finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty that the proposal of increasing pensions by €10 seems to fall short of what the government is set announce next week.
Doherty said the proposal had to be seen in the round, stating that his party would also increase the living alone allowance by €15 and decreased medicine charges.
In addition, the Sinn Féin states it would:
In what has been seen as a pivot by the party, Sinn Féin has moved away from a proposal in last year’s alternative budget of a wealth tax at a rate of 1% on net wealth above €1 million.
The budget document for 2024 states that to date, there has been “too little analysis of the merits and design of a tax on net wealth”.
It states that while Sinn Féin supports the rationale for a wealth tax, one which achieves the objectives of efficiency and fairness, the party would now like to establish a Wealth Tax Commission.
In terms of taxation, Doherty outlined how his party would reduce the first rate of USC from 0.5 to 0% and reduce the second rate to 1%.
There would also be an increase entry point to third rate to €25,959 and an increase of €50 in PRSI.
Sinn Féin says it would increase the social welfare payment by €15 and increase child benefit by €10.
The party also plans to introduce a “compassionate social welfare package” for the bereaved, while also providing free travel to those with Epilepsy who cannot drive.
On the cost-of-living measures, Sinn Féin would not proceed with excise restoration on petrol and diesel at the end of October and would cut household electricity bills reducing the price that electricity suppliers can change households.
“Sinn Féin are committed to investing in the future. This means investing in housing, health and climate action to deliver a fairer future for all.
“The crises in housing and health are the legacy of successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fail policies. More Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil budgets will only result in more of the same bad policies.
A Sinn Féin Budget is needed. Our budget proposals illustrate the type of change that a Sinn Féin government would deliver,” said McDonald.
Doherty said the budget that delivers for ordinary workers and families, and explained to reporters how his party was taking aim at “gold-plated” pensions by reducing tax subsidies that would bring in €336 million.
His party also plans to introduce a 3% solidarity tax on the portion of individual income above €140,000, which would raise €386 million.
“We are putting fairness at the heart of taxation policy. Sinn Féin’s tax proposals will reduce income taxes for those earning under €100,000.
“Our financial proposals would build affordable homes, tackle the high cost of living, reduce health waiting lists, respond ambitiously and fairly to the climate crisis and commence planning for a United Ireland,” said Doherty.
Fine Gael levelled criticism at the Sinn Féin budget today, stating that the alternative budget will increase tax on inheriting the family home by increasing the rate of Inheritance Tax (CAT) by 3%, from 33% to 36%.
It also stated that the figures were “plucked out of the sky” despite Doherty stating that the numbers are based on costings from the parliamentary budget office.
Meanwhile, the Social Democrats has proposed a €2 increase on the minimum wage and a tax on super wealth.
In its alternative budget, the party called for minimum wage rise would bring it to €13.30 an hour while the tax on net wealth would see 0.5% levied on assets in excess of one million euro and 1% on assets over two million euro in value.
Family homes, farms and businesses would be exempted from the suggested wealth tax.
“Low incomes that are impossible to survive on given the extremely high cost of living in Ireland are a huge concern,” said the party’s finance spokeswoman Roisin Shortall.
“We would increase the minimum wage by two euro to 13.30 euro per hour and introduce a living wage within the next two years.”
The budget plan includes a pledge to deliver 10,000 affordable homes in 2024. The party also recommends an increase to the renters’ tax credit,” she said.
The Rural Independent Group’s alternative budget plan called for the budget surplus to be used to abolish the Universal Social Charge.
The grouping of opposition TDs said the cost of scrapping the USC would total around €4.4 billion.
But they insisted the measure was always meant to be temporary and the multibillion-euro surplus generated from corporation tax receipts now provides the Government with the headroom to axe it.
Group member and Tipperary TD Mattie McGrath described the USC as a “punitive” tax, as he accused Fine Gael of “disregarding” previous election pledges to scrap it.
“It’s a punitive and cruel tax and it must be abolished,” he told reporters at Leinster House.
The group has also proposed a €30 increase in all core social welfare payments, including the pension.
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