Election 2020: Housing, Tax, Health, Climate, Law and order, Education - Where the parties stand on the issues
Here is where the seven biggest parties stand on the issues of housing, tax, health, climate, law and order, and education.
Housing
- Build 50,000 affordable houses for below €250k.
- Introduce a first-time buyer’s 33% top-up SSIA grant and retain and expand the help-to-buy scheme.
- No rent freezes, but a €600 rent-tax credit and a life-time rent deposit scheme.
- A new €168m “preventing homelessness” fighting fund.
- Extend Rebuilding Ireland home loans for another five years
- Review of rent pressure zones and capped rates of 4%
- No rent freezes
- Up to 60,000 social homes over five years and 10,000 affordable units.
- Reduce rents by up to €1,500 a year, via a tax credit and a three-year rent freeze
- Build 100,000 new homes over five years
- Put an end long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough
- Use Nama’s €4bn projected surplus to fund spend on public housing.
- Replace Rebuilding Ireland with national housing plan to build public housing on public land, directly procured by local authorities
- Implement cost-rental model for delivery of affordable public housing
- Fast-track apprenticeships to train 20,000 workers to retrofit housing stock using European Investment Bank funding
- Tax vacant land and buildings that can be used for housing, disincentivise land hoarding.
- Spend €16bn on building 80,000 social homes over five years — part-funded using €5bn from the Irish Strategic Investment Fund
- A three-year rent freeze is to be imposed
- Incentives and tax treatment of property development will be “reviewed”.
- Use public lands to deliver an actual build of 100,000 homes over five years
- Affordable homes with mortgages of €800 a month
- A nationwide rent freeze until an increase in housing supply drives down costs
- Eradicate homelessness in the next Dáil.
- Make housing a human right with a referendum
- Immediately declare a housing emergency and begin major house-building programme
- Create national construction company to focus on State-owned land
- Stop sale of public land and propose national construction company to build affordable houses.
Tax
- Reduce universal social charge rate from 4.5% to 3.5%
- Increase standard rate income tax band by €3,000 for a single person and €6,000 for a couple
- Increase earned income tax credit to €1,650, equalising it with PAYE
- Retain €1.2bn of €11bn for risks to the economy
- Increase rainy-day fund to €5.3bn.
- Increase the point where a single person pays the higher rate of tax from €35,300 to €50,000, and to €100,000 for a couple
- Raise universal social charge exemption threshold from €13,000 to €20,500
- Minimum wage is to increase next month to €10.10
- Ensure a surplus of €3.8bn by 2021, in case of threats to the economy.
- Abolish the USC for all under €30,000: €1.2bn/year
- Abolish local property tax: €485m per year
- Raise the earned income tax credit for self-employed to €1,650: no costing
- Introduce a 5% levy on all incomes above €140k, tapered at 2.5% for every €1,000 above €100k
- Maintain corporation tax of 12.5%
- Introduce an 80% cap on profits offset for intangible assets by multinationals.
- Introduce a universal basic income through gradual reform of tax and welfare system
- Reintroduce an 80% windfall tax on the sale of rezoned land
- Limit 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.
- Introduce a “minimum” effective rate of corporation tax of 12.5% and establish a standing commission on taxation
- Penalties for tax evasion are to be increased
- Motor tax is to be adjusted further to promote the uptake of low-emission vehicles
- Sugar tax will be expanded to more foods.
- Introduce a statutory living wage and negotiate a new public pay deal
- End discrimination against new entrants in public sector and discourage two-tier pay scales in private sector
- Further cut gender pay gap
- Replace vacant site levy with a tax on land hoarding.
- No tax increase for anyone who earns under €90,000 per year — 93% of population; introduce new tax band for those earning over €100,000
- Minimum corporation tax of 12.5% on profits for all companies
- Create a millionaires’ tax: assets valued at more than €1m taxed at 2% per annum; use this money to offset property tax
- Retain USC on incomes over €90,000 and scrap it for those under.
Health
- Reduce monthly drug payment scheme threshold to €100
- €10 top-up payment for carer and disability benefits
- Abolish prescription charges
- Overall €2bn health-spend increase over five years
- Reduce emergency department waiting times, with trolley waits kept to under four hours.
- Extra €5bn for health over five years
- Recruit an additional 5,000 nurses and 3,840 primary care workers
- Roll out free GP care for under-18s and publish a women’s health plan
- An extra 2,600 hospital beds.
- 2,500 more nurses and midwives: €134m
- 1,000 more consultant doctors: €224m
- Free GP care for all: €455m
- Increase hospital beds by 1,500: €1bn in capital spending and €480m in current spending each year.
- Implement Sláintecare plan
- Invest in GP services to ease the pressure on hospital waiting lists
- Restrict commercial marketing of food to children and require at least 30 minutes of physical education every day to tackle obesity
- Design system of presumed consent for organ donation.
- Committed to pumping an additional €5bn into health over five years
- Free GP care for under-18s
- HSE recruitment embargo to be lifted
- Increase funding for home help and respite care.
- Abolish home-care waiting lists
- Invest in primary care services, phased extension of free GP care. Additional supports and assistant hours for people with disabilities
- Additional funds for mental health, addiction services, and maternity services
- Full access to abortion care and medicinal cannabis.
- Abolish the HSE and replace it with community health councils
- Reverse cuts to health: reopen hospital wards, hire nurses and support staff, and target 15,000 hospital beds
- Provide pay parity and restoration for health workers
- Provide free GP care for all and create an online GP service.
Climate
- Securing a ‘Just Transition’ for communities, ensuring jobs and grants to reduce carbon emissions
- Increase carbon taxes to €80 by 2030
- More retrofitting of houses through a green houses agency with €200m of funding
- Tackling fuel poverty and peatland restoration. Reaching 70% target for electricity from renewables by 2030
- No stated carbon emissions reduction target.
- Long-term major transport projects would cost €8.6bn for works such as Metrolink and BusConnects in Dublin, Cork, and Galway
- Ringfence 10% of carbon taxes for cycling, spending €600m
- Double the numbers cycling daily
- Increase carbon tax by €6 annually, raising €6bn over 10 years and using these funds for climate action.
- No climate tax rises in absence of viable options
- No new licences for offshore fossil fuel drilling
- Domestic waste collection to return to local authorities
- Develop transition to electric vehicles.
- Work with European Commission to develop national energy and climate action plan for 2030 to meet commitments under the Paris Agreement
- End issuing of oil and gas licences, end all fossil fuel subsidies, and implement a nationwide ban on smoky coal
- Ban single-use plastic and set up a bottle deposit and return scheme
- Retro-fit 75,000 houses per annum to modernise heating systems for renewables.
- Ambitious home insulation scheme, with a target of 100,000 homes to be retrofitted each year
- Investment into the ESB, Coillte, and Bord na Móna to ensure the Just Transition framework for the Midlands, with the goal of creating sustainable jobs in clean energy, recycling, and land management.
- Support workers in carbon-intensive industries to transition to new jobs
- Ringfence carbon tax funds to retrofit homes
- Introduce an offshore wind development agency, a marine spatial plan, grants for solar installation, and more biogas facilities
- New environmental levy on sand, gravel, and stone used in construction
- Uphold the fracking ban.
- Act now to achieve targets of Paris Climate Agreement
- Create publicly owned companies for solar and offshore wind energy
- Expand and electrify rail network; move to a system of free, green, and frequent public transport
- Divert from fossil fuels, decarbonise the economy.
Law and order
- Increase Garda numbers to 16,000 and the Garda reserve to 2,500
- “Smash” gangland crime with special anti-terror laws
- Introduce mandatory sentences on for knife-crime attacks
- Tackle anti-social behaviour with laws including eviction powers
- Establish an independent gambling regulator
- Set up a new Garda fraud squad to tackle false insurance claims.
- An extra 700 gardaí annually for five years
- New policing measures to ensure community safety
- Expand Criminal Assets Bureau resources
- Build an €80m family law court.
- Increase garda numbers to 16,000
- Recruit 2,000 additional civilian staff
- A new garda building programme prioritising stations for rural Ireland
- Commit to review role of the Special Criminal Court.
- Increase investment in community policing to counter gangland crime
- Enact legislation to tackle revenge porn, establish digital safety officer
- Criminalise hate speech
- Pardon and release non-violent, minor drug offenders, decriminalise possession of small quantities of cannabis products and plants.
- Introduce local commissions to deal with violent drug gangs, along with supports to counteract social and economic marginalisation
- Role of the Criminal Assets Bureau is to be expanded
- Establish a gun crime commission
- Maintain a zero-tolerance stance on racism and xenophobia.
- Invest heavily in community policing, maintain special criminal court to fight gangs
- Free up gardaí by using more civilian staff, hire, train, and empower gardaí to battle white-collar crime
- Invest in youth facilities to prevent crime; prosecute adults who groom children for crime; and strengthen joint policing committees
- Introduce laws on hate crime and hate speech
- Develop a plan against racism and end direct provision.
- Create locally elected body to oversee the gardaí
- Introduce legislation to give the public direct access to barristers
- Protect whistleblowers in Garda and legal system
- Introduce hate crime legislation.
Education
- Establish a new Department of Higher Education and Research to specifically deal with the third-level sector
- Pledge to freeze student fees
- Fully restore post-graduate grants
- Reduce primary school class sizes to 20 students per class by 2025.
- Increase school capitation funding to 25% over the next five years, worth an extra €60m for schools
- Abolition of charges for the school transport scheme
- Free school books for all primary schools
- The establishment of four technological universities.
- Introduce a €140 Back to School Bonus for every child, to be paid at the start of July
- Provide free school books to all children
- Abolish third-level fees which it says will cost €236m
- Increase student maintenance grants by 10%.
- Remove the baptism barrier from school admissions
- Introduce a comprehensive school meals programme
- Improve teacher training
- Create “flexible” and “mobile” third-level education.
- Increase funding to the education sector by €140m
- Reduce classroom sizes in a bid to “ensure that every child gets a fair start in life”
- Increase the capitation grant to Deis schools by 50%
- Reduce student registration fees.
- Restore pay parity for teachers and provide funding and better job security for special needs assistants
- Reduce primary school class sizes
- Publicly fund school books, school transport, and classroom resources.
- Fight to scrap third-level fees
- Increase both the Susi grant and its eligibility threshold and insist on smaller class sizes in schools
- Establish a maximum class size of 18 students, and increase the number of special needs assistants
- Fund blue-sky research.
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