Sinn Féin has pledged additional expenditure and tax reductions of €12.4 billion for 2025 in an expansive proposed budget that would involve €4 billion more spending than is being proposed by the Government.
Its proposals, published on Thursday, include a large number of substantial spending proposals, the primary one being a promise to abolish Universal Social Charge (USC) for workers earning €45,000 or less.
The party said, in government, it would initially scrap USC for those earning under €30,000 (at a cost of about €1 billion to the exchequer) and then extend the abolition over the lifetime of a government to the €45,000 figure, resulting in an annual drop of €2 billion in revenue to the State.
The party has also committed to abolish student fees (reducing them by €1,500 next year), abolish the TV licence fee, reduce childcare costs to €10 per day, increase monthly child benefit by €10, give a €100 tax credit to workers and deliver 21,500 social and affordable homes in 2025 with almost €4 billion in additional capital expenditure.
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In separate cost-of-living proposals, the party said it would commit €2.3 billion in once-off payments including two separate double child benefit payments in October and December; €450 in electricity credits; and a reversal of an excise duty increase for petrol and diesel, which came into effect in August.
Unveiling the document, party leader Mary Lou McDonald said, in government, Sinn Féin would ensure all of the funding spent would give value for money.
“We won’t waste the public’s money. We will use it to make life better,” she said.
Sinn Féin’s budget would also stall an increase in carbon tax, allow for a temporary mortgage interest-relief scheme and provide increases of €12 in the State pension and social welfare.
The minimum wage would also be increased by €1.10 per hour under the party’s proposals.
Sinn Féin’s overall package of €12.4 billion compares with a Government package that has committed €8.3 billion in additional spending.
In terms of financing the package, Sinn Féin has pledged to introduce a number of new measures to raise revenue, most of which are targeted at higher earners.
It wants individuals with income of more than €145,000 to pay a solidarity tax of 3 per cent, and wants to remove tax credits on a tapered basis for those earning above €100,000.
Its budget also proposes an increase in residential stamp duty to 2 per cent for homes worth more than €700,000 and to 5 per cent for properties valued at over €1 million. The current rate is 1 per cent up to €1 million and 2 per cent after that.
Ms McDonald rejected the suggestion the big-spending pledges reflected “desperation” on the part of Sinn Féin.
“I think what we have set out involves necessary investments. The desperation resides with people who can’t get a home,” she said.
Finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said a growing economy in the coming years would pay for the party’s measures.
Meanwhile, the Social Democrats said it would forgo the majority of once-off measures and target tax cuts at the lower-paid in a slimmed-down tax package so the focus could be put on public services instead.
Outlining its budget plan, the party is pledging 12,000 new social homes and 10,000 affordable homes at a cost of €1.3 billion on top of monies already budgeted for by the Government. It is also pushing for a publicly owned and non-profit childcare sector, spending €861 million to increase social welfare payments by €25 per week and extending paid parents’ leave by four weeks per parent.
The party said it would end a range of tax exemptions for institutional property investors in a move to raise €140 million.
Rather than once-off payments in universal electricity credits, the party is proposing a one-time cash subsidy based on pandemic-era wage support schemes that would be based on household earnings.
This would see cash payments tapered from €260 to €120 based on household earnings, with families earning more than €120,000 deemed ineligible.
In terms of revenue raising, the Social Democrats want to see a doubling of the bank levy, an increase in the employer PRSI by 0.25 per cent, a windfall tax on energy companies, increasing stamp duty on share sales to 1.3 per cent and a super wealth tax on assets valued in excess of €2 million – excluding family homes, farm holdings and pension assets. This would raise just under €2 billion, the party said.
The Labour Party also focuses heavily on childcare in its budget proposals, saying parents would pay no more than €50 a week in a new public childcare system under its plans.
The Labour package promises to move to a fully public childcare service over a number of years, by adding 30,000 places for children over the lifetime of the next government.
Its policy estimates first-year operating costs of €53 million to provide 6,000 places, which would be distributed across 100 services.
The policy also proposes an allocation of €50 million to help construct buildings and facilities for such models. Labour also wants the €20 million in capital investment allowed to private suppliers at present to be reallocated to the public model.
