Labour calls for pay link to Maternity Benefit and vows to increase paid parental leave
Labour's manifesto is promising to deal with 'six missions' over a five-year term of Government, including the introduction of 30,000 new public childcare places over five years. Stock Picture: Dominic Lipinski/PA
Labour has called for Maternity Benefit to be linked to a mother’s pay as the party vowed to increase paid parental leave to up to a year.
Party leader Ivana Bacik made the pledge as she launched the party's manifesto, which also calls for the introduction of 30,000 new public childcare places over five years.
The manifesto, titled Building Better Together, is promising to deal with “six missions” over a five-year term of Government.
These include dealing with the housing crisis, tackling low pay, a cost-of-living action plan, and a new charter for children’s rights.
Ms Bacik said her party would deliver 6,000 public childcare places each year, with the new public system to cost parents €50 a week.
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Other measures proposed by Labour include a second tier of child benefit targeted to those on lower incomes.
Among the promises set out by Ms Bacik are a pledge to index link social welfare payments, tax credits, and tax bands to cost-of-living increases. This means that payments, such as the State pension, would rise at a regular rate, rather than being decided on a budget-by-budget basis.
The party’s finance spokesperson, Ged Nash, said this means that social welfare payments would increase by a minimum of €15 every year.
He added that Labour will remove the existing means test for the Carer’s Allowance and hike the half rate for the payment.
The Labour leader has pitched the establishment of a State-run construction company, which would be done through reforms to the existing Land Development Agency (LDA), as well as the construction of 50,000 new homes a year.
“Currently, constructions costs — particularly apartment builds — have got so high that private sector builders simply cannot afford to bear the risk. Only the State can do that,” Ms Bacik said.
She said a State construction company is the “most practical way of delivering homes at scale”, while adding that her suggestion would not mean the Government takes over all construction in the country.
On healthcare, the party is proposing to bring forward free GP care for under 18s. However, it wants to see it extended out to everyone into the future.
It is also calling for the HSE to be funded to directly hire GPs as staff working out of primary care centres.
Meanwhile, Mr Nash criticised Fine Gael leader Simon Harris, saying his party’s proposals to slash taxes and further increase spending were akin to Celtic Tiger proposals.
“Simon Harris’s new energy is starting to look like a Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen tribute act. Most of us remember the hangover and some of us don’t want to go there again,” Mr Nash said.
Pressed on if he believed Mr Harris’s commitments to spending increases and tax cuts would bankrupt the country, Mr Nash said there are “risks associated with the propositions of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil”.
“It’s not that long ago when governments in this country decided that they were going to introduce very significant tax cuts, while at the same time invest in public services. We know where that got this country,” Mr Nash said.
The Labour TD said there are sitting ministers in the outgoing government who created the mess and others who fixed it, while adding that they have “very short memories indeed”.
Promises contained within the manifesto include:
- Establishing a new Department of Unification, under the remit of the Taoiseach, which would be responsible for reconciliation, harmonisation, and planning for Irish unity;
- Introducing a full year of paid parental leave and phasing in pay-related Maternity Benefit;
- Remove the Carers' Allowance means test;
- Make a series of reforms to accountability structures for Government ministers and senior civil servants;
- Introduce a new agency for integration, migration, and asylum;
- Introduce a new tax on SUVs and heavy cars.
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