Sinn Féin: We want to ease the
burden and give people a break
TheJournal.ie 16/10/2013
It makes sense to put more money into
people’s pockets by reducing their taxes so that they have some money to spend
in the real economy, writes Sinn Féin’s
Pearse Doherty.
BUDGETS ARE ABOUT choices and tough
decisions have to be made. Sinn Féin’s Budget choices are about fairness,
giving families a break and ensuring that the most vulnerable sections of
society are protected.
We have identified a series of taxation
and savings measures, fully costed by government departments, to reduce the
deficit and pay for new spending measures.
The domestic economy is on the
floor and showing no signs of picking up. Towns up and down the state are
blighted by the empty shop fronts on their main streets, To Let signs on
business premises and For Sale signs still standing at the entrance to ghost
estates.
Wherever I go, people tell me that
they feel they are being treated unfairly, they see the rich getting richer,
while ordinary workers are under terrible pressure to make ends meet.
This is true, not just of those who
are unfortunate enough to have lost their jobs, but working people who find
that by the time they pay their bills, they have almost nothing left.
So, when
the Sinn Féin economics team set about creating an alternative budget to the
government’s austerity-based one, the first priority was to ease that burden
and give people a break.
It makes sense to put more money
into people’s pockets by reducing their taxes so that they have some money to
spend in the real economy.
Abolish property tax
Therefore Sinn Féin would repeal the Local Property Tax. This would save the average
household €278 in tax. We would not ask anyone earning below €17,542 (the
minimum wage) to pay the Universal Social Charge. That would benefit 296,000
workers.
We would give free school meals to
500 additional schools and pay for half of core school books, both measures
designed to ease the burden on families.
Anyone using our health service, education
system or other frontline service can see there is nothing left to cut and Sinn
Féin would rule out more cuts to our public services.
While government claims that basic
welfare has not been cut, anyone looking to renew their medical card or depending
on child benefit knows the reality is very different. Sinn Féin says no to more
sneaky cuts to welfare, education or hospital services. Forty million euro
would be set aside to employ frontline workers so the whittling away of
services can be reversed.
This would include funding for 230
desperately needed Special Needs Assistants in schools.
Sinn Féin would move to reverse
some of the most brutal government cuts. We would restore the respite grant for
carers and extend the fuel allowance season by three weeks.
We would pay for cochlear ear
implants for the 200 children who need them. The parents and children concerned
are painfully aware of the cruelty of a government which would provide just one
implant, like giving a child with visual impairment one lens.
Our public services are at breaking
point and some are already broken. They need to be protected. Ireland in 2014 will have suffered over €30bn in cuts and taxes in
the space of a few years.
Wealth Tax
Fianna Fáil’s disastrous reign and
its surrender of Irish economic sovereignty has left the country in a critical
financial position. Nobody denies that the books must be balanced and that
there are difficult choices to be made.
Sinn Féin’s tax and spending
proposals should not be seen in isolation, we are also talking about a sorely
needed stimulus package as part of our broader economic policy.
We would maintain the 9 per cent
VAT rate for the hospitality and tourism sectors for another year. This is to
protect jobs, while a broader Sinn Féin stimulus package is proposing almost
€10 billion additional investment in job creation and economic growth. This
would create 100,000 jobs.
Our proposed Wealth Tax would raise
revenue to fund a Youth Guarantee to tackle the chronic crisis in youth
unemployment. Guaranteeing work or training to our young people is as important
to our economic recovery as a fair budget.
There can be no real recovery with
over 400,000 unemployed and a brain drain which is pulling our youngest and
brightest away and breaking hearts all over the country. The government has
relied on austerity only and the result is no growth and sky-high unemployment
and emigration.
Our guiding principle has been to
show how a budget can be fair. We would ask those who can afford to do so to
pay more and increase tax on some forms of discretionary spending such as on
cigarettes and on gambling.
Our alternative is fair, it is costed
by the government and it is fully implementable.
It exposes the rhetoric from the
consensus for cuts of Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil, that there is no
alternative to austerity.
Pearse Doherty is a TD for Donegal South-West and Sinn Féin’s
Spokesperson on Finance
Sinn Féin Mountmellick – Serving The Community
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