Labour claims Fine Gael's spending promise 'lacks ambition'

Labour Leader Brendan Howlin said Fine Gael's promise to spend an extra €11bn out to 2025 “lacks ambition,” saying the country can afford to spend an extra €17.5bn.

Speaking at the defunct Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend in Dublin alongside candidate Kevin Humphries, Mr Howlin said tax cuts should be set aside in order to deliver quality public services.

Responding to questions from the Irish Examiner, Mr Howlin said: “Fine Gael are saying that they would spend somewhere between €1.5bn and €2.5bn between taxes, tax cuts and expenditure per year.

We believe that you can be much more ambitious than that. We will be saying that we can afford to spend somewhere between €2.9 and €3.4bn a year.

"That's transformative,” he said.

“We can actually solve the problems that beset ordinary working people right now, with that sort of investment. We can't afford tax cuts as Fine Gael are promising. People want a health service that they can depend on,” he said.

The most recent Department of Finance figures indicates that even in the most conservative terms, there is expected growth of between 2.5% and 3% for the next five years.

Mr Howlin said the Labour Party in Government would seek to deliver 80,000 social and affordable homes at a cost of €16bn over the lifetime of a Government.

“We will have the resources to solve those problems. we have the determination as well,” he said.

First full day of the #GE20 campaign well underway. Spent the morning in Dublin Bay South in Sandymount with @KHumphreysDBS. Great recognition for the hard work Kevin is doing. Now onto Wexford. #GE20 pic.twitter.com/8gPaO68FeX

— BrendanHowlin (@BrendanHowlin) January 15, 2020

He reiterated his concern about entering government with Sinn Féin but said Mary Lou McDonald's party have robbed their policies.

“I have real difficulties about going into government with Sinn Féin.

"And it's not because of their policies, but it's because I genuinely am concerned, that the real leadership, it is not the visible leadership that we see. But there are still people pulling the strings that we don't see.

"That's become evident in many of the utterances of recent time so that would be a worry for me in any arrangement,” he said.