Greens eye 15 seats as Ryan promises to scrap homework

Green leader Eamon Ryan has predicted that his party could return 15 TDs after the election as the group’s manifesto promises to double transport spending and scrap homework for primary pupils.

Attending a cycling protest over the weekend, Mr Ryan said the Greens would dedicate some 20% of transport budgets in future towards cycling and walking.

The manifesto, entitled ‘Towards 2030, A Decade Of Change’, concentrates heavily on the climate, public transport, and young people.

Weekend polls showed growing support for the party, reaching between 8% and 10%.

The party also vowed, at its launch, to spend €50bn on retrofitting homes over the next 20 years, which it says is necessary to wind down the use of fossil fuels.

Among the key pledges outlined in the manifesto, the party vows to:

• Urgently build public houses on public land to alleviate the housing crisis;
• Invest in GP services to ease the pressure on hospital waiting lists;
• Get Ireland moving by doubling investment in public transport while committing 10% of transport funds to cycling and 10% to walking;
• Reduce pupil-teacher ratios;
• Invest in third-level institutions and phase out homework in primary schools;
• End the issuing of oil and gas exploration and extraction licences and stand firmly against the importation of fracked gas from other territories;
• Future-proof Ireland’s energy system with a massive investment in offshore wind;
• Reward farmers for sequestering carbon, restoring nature and producing clean energy, through a reformed common agricultural policy.

The party has recently worked hard to counter the idea that its policies will be harmful to rural Ireland and farmers.

Mr Ryan said: “The fallacy that this is not going to be good for rural Ireland has to stop because I think people in rural Ireland want to be part of this, and have as much sense as anyone else that they have a role to play, and we have a role to play by listening and realising it has to come from the bottom up.”

He predicted that the Greens could return 15 TDs, many of whom would be expected to be elected in the Dublin region.

He also criticised rival parties who were promising “handouts” in their manifestos, adding that the Greens cannot guarantee tax cuts, and he said forming the next government is likely to be a long and complicated process.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have both signalled that they would look to the Green Party in the likely event that they do not win an outright majority.

The party has also proposed a universal basic income payment to all citizens without means-testing, lowering the voting age, and a referendum on housing are also laid out as policy objectives.

Data courtesy of The Irish Times

Mr Ryan said: “I think the bigger picture is what is the strategic direction we want to take the country.

“It’s not the exact figures, it’s the policy.

“The disagreements with other parties on climate and domestic issues isn’t just on the figure but it’s the big policy issues that need to be addressed.”

The party has also pledged that all new public buildings will have electric-vehicle charge points and says there should be charging stations at every service station.

To pay for its proposals, the Green Party is recommending:

• Reintroducing an 80% windfall tax on the sale of rezoned land with a proportion of the funds going directly to the local authority;
• Limiting tax relief on pension funds which have enough funds to provide a pension of €48,000 per annum;
• A wealth tax for people with assets over €10m;
• Increases to carbon tax;
• Introducing a flight tax and ending all fossil fuel subsidies.