May 16, 2007
2007 Election Manifesto Contents Page
Message from President Gerry Adams
Teachtaireacht ó Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh
Executive Summary
Achoimre Feidhmiúcháin
1. Lasting Peace and Irish Unity
2. Equal Access to World Class Public Services
Healthcare is a Right
Housing is a Right
Education - Reaching our Full Potential
Childcare is a Right
3. A Strong Economy, Sustainable Into the Future
Building the All-Ireland Economy
Providing World Class Infrastructure:
Transport
Communications
Energy
Supporting Enterprise and Job Creation
Promoting Workers' Rights
4. An Equal Economy, Where Wealth is Shared
Eliminating Poverty
Financing Better Services, Infrastructure and Social Protections:
Tax Revenue - A Taxation Justice Approach
Non-Tax Revenue - A New Emphasis
Responsible Spending of Public Wealth
5. Rural Regeneration and Equality for Rural Communities
Sustainable Rural and Coastal Communities and Economies
Revitalising Irish Agriculture
A Future for Irish Fisheries
6. Community Safety - Justice and Human Rights
7. An Ireland of Equals
Equality for Women
Equality for Children and Young People
Equality for Older People
Equality for People with Disabilities
Equality for All Ethnicities
Equality for the LGBT Community
8. A Better Quality of Life
Protecting the Right to a Clean Environment
Reducing Harm from Drugs
Promoting the Irish Language
Supporting Arts and Culture
9. Demilitarisation and Solidarity for a Better World
Ireland has changed greatly over the past decade. The Peace Process driven by Sinn Féin has delivered changes many never thought possible. In this State, the hard work of all our people has reversed economic decline, reduced unemployment dramatically, ended emigration and encouraged immigration. As a consequence, Ireland is now more peaceful and economically prosperous than ever before.
But we still live in a divided Ireland. The gap has widened between those with massive wealth and those who must work long hours to house, clothe and feed themselves and their families. People in poverty and on the margins of society don't share in the new prosperity. Minorities suffer discrimination. And our country is still partitioned.
With so much wealth at our collective disposal, why are there still so many social problems? It's because successive Governments have made the wrong choices. They have rewarded the greed of the few at the expense of the welfare of the people as a whole. They have abandoned housing policy to speculators and profiteers, so decent homes are now unaffordable for many thousands of people. They have further privatised our health services, worsening the two-tier divide and aggravating the crisis in our hard-pressed public hospital system. They refused to invest in our education system and make it more inclusive so that many are denied the full and equal access that is their right.
This government has also failed miserably as planners. As a result, economic development is concentrated in the east of the country and some regions still suffer major disadvantage despite the booming economy. Dublin is sprawling beyond control. Commuting has become a nightmare for most people. Agriculture and fisheries - and rural and coastal communities - are in accelerated decline. Our natural resources have been sold to the lowest bidder and our environment is under pressure as never before. Irish economic competitiveness is not secure; it is decreasing.
But it is not true that anything would be better than the current Government. It is not enough to say that this coalition has been in office for a decade and we need a change of personnel, because democracy is not just about parties taking turns. Far more is needed - a new vision, different policies and a genuine determination to build a secure future and a better quality of life for all, based on equality.
There is only one real alternative in this general election: Sinn Féin.
We are ready for Government, north and south. We have a vision and a plan for a prosperous country in which wealth is shared and where the promise of equal rights and equal opportunities is fulfilled for each and every person who lives on our island.
We are the only party with a genuine commitment and a strategy to achieve a new republic that honours the vision of the 1916 Proclamation by pursuing 'the prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally'. What does this mean in 2007? It means:
• A United Ireland where all the people of our island look forward to a shared and peaceful future.
• An Ireland of Equals where everyone's rights are guaranteed, free of the divisions caused by partition, sectarianism, racism and other forms of discrimination, and free from poverty and economic inequality.
• A healthcare service providing equal access for everyone based on need alone.
• Housing as a right for all.
• An education system that allows Ireland to reach its full potential - that ensures every child full access to learning at all levels and ensures literacy and life-long learning for everyone.
• Childcare for all who need it, to help raise family incomes, promote women's right to equal pay, and enhance early childhood development.
• A properly planned Ireland with improved quality of life for individuals, families and communities through efficient transport and other vital infrastructure, leisure facilities and working conditions that allow people to contribute time to their family, friends and neighbours.
• A new commitment to protect the land, the waters, the air and the whole environment of Ireland, to ensure sustainable agriculture and fisheries, to reclaim our natural resources and to develop renewable energy to guarantee a future for our children.
• An Ireland that opposes war and global exploitation and through a policy of positive neutrality, works for international peace and justice.
• A strong economy that serves and protects our society - that offers more prosperity and more equality.
This is the type of Ireland we are committed to build. To achieve these positive changes we will work as hard as we always have throughout the Peace Process, in our communities, in councils across the country, in the Assembly and in the Dáil. For the past five years our five Sinn Féin TDs have provided leadership beyond their numbers. They have promoted the republican vision and worked with people throughout Ireland to create a new type of politics. Ireland needs more Sinn Féin TDs in the Dáil to champion real change and to provide the most effective representation for our communities.
This is your Ireland. It is your future. Only you can shape it for the better. Join us in that task by voting Sinn Féin.
Gerry Adams MP MLA
Lasting Peace and Irish Unity
• Complete a Green Paper on Irish Unity within one year, identifying steps and measures to promote and assist a successful transition to a United Ireland.
• Appoint a Minister of State to co-ordinate the Government's all-Ireland policies across Departments.
• Introduce 6 County elected representation in the Houses of the Oireachtas.
• Begin the process of co-ordinating economic development, service provision and planning on an all-Ireland basis.
• Commence a specific process of outreach to the unionist community to involve them in this planning as equal partners.
• Secure a referendum on Irish Unity to be held simultaneously, north and south.
Equal Access to World Class Public Services
Healthcare is a Right
• Begin the transition to a new universal public health system for Ireland that provides care to all free at the point of delivery, on the basis of need alone, and funded from general, fair and progressive taxation.
• Invest all health funding in the public system.
• Immediately end tax breaks for private hospitals and the land gift scheme.
• Provide full medical cards for all under the poverty line and all under-18s
• Make all new hospital consultant posts public-only.
• Develop a network of modern and accessible Primary Care Treatment Centres.
• Make advanced screening services available locally, promptly and widely.
• Deliver into the public hospital system the additional 3,000 hospital beds required.
• Reverse cutbacks in services at local hospitals and configure all hospitals to ensure that emergency services are available as locally as possible.
• Ring-fence at least 12% of the health budget for mental health services.
• Produce a fully resourced, comprehensive All-Ireland Suicide Prevention Strategy.
Housing is a Right
• Establish a Department of Housing with a full Minister.
• Construct 70,000 new units by 2012 to accommodate social housing need
• Amend the Planning and Development Act (2002) to require that all new developments must allocate 30% to social and affordable housing, with at least 10% social and at least 10% affordable housing.
• Eliminate street homelessness by the year 2010.
• Increase mortgage interest relief for first time mortgage-holders and principle home owners who earn up to the average industrial wage.
• Introduce a tenants' rights charter.
• Require all new social housing to be fitted with energy-efficient alternative energy sources.
• Reform the planning laws to support the right of rural dwellers to build on their own land or to purchase and build locally.
• Legislate to ensure services such as public transportation, healthcare centres, childcare centres and schools are incorporated into all housing schemes.
Education and Childcare
• Introduce a universal pre-school session of 3.5 hours per day, five days a week for all children aged 3-5 years.
• Centralise childcare provision under a single Department.
• Immediately reduce all class sizes for children under 9 to a maximum of 20 pupils.
• End the use of prefab buildings within the lifetime of the next Dáil.
• Increase funding per pupil at pre-school and primary level so that expenditure will be more equal to that at third level, ensuring that schools in areas of high disadvantage receive proportionately more funding and resources.
• Prioritise action on autism to ensure the earliest intervention for all who need it.
• Keep the Irish language as a core subject at post-primary level.
• Teach a second subject through Irish at primary school level eg PE or drama.
• Launch a vigorous all-Ireland adult literacy campaign.
• Assist schools and teachers to promote discipline in schools and ensure a positive learning environment.
A Strong and Sustainable economy
Strengthening the All-Ireland Economy
• Adopt and implement an all-Ireland Economic Development Plan.
• Ensure maximum all-Ireland co-ordination in the use of EU funds.
• Begin an open debate on the benefits of one currency for the whole island.
• Establish a public investment programme to ensure that Government departments and agencies proactively invest in historically neglected and underdeveloped areas to reverse the current imbalance.
Infrastructure
• An extensive expansion of an all-Ireland rail network on an accelerated basis.
• Increase funding and provision of buses in rural areas. Provide 500 extra buses for Bus Átha Cliath.
• Legislate and budget to ensure that all public transport is accessible to people with disabilities.
• Build a North West Motorway/high speed dual carriageway serving the route from Dublin to Donegal/Derry.
• Abolish road tolls.
• Provide universal access to broadband on an all-Ireland basis.
• Establish an all-Ireland mobile phone network, with reasonable all-Ireland tariffs.
• Put an end to the artificial inflation of ESB prices.
• Invest in the accelerated development of wind and wave energy production.
Supporting Enterprise and Job Creation
• Support the development of indigenous micro and small and medium enterprises (SME) and social economy enterprises.
• Improve support for start-up businesses including provision of increased business advice, guidance and training plus dedicated management development.
• Adopt an All-Ireland R&D Strategy including extra assistance to SMEs and new businesses to develop business plans for R&D.
• Provide specific recycling depots for small business to enable them to reduce their waste management costs.
• Initiate a specific Redundancy to Entrepreneurship scheme
• Explore and pursue possibilities for establishing new profitable companies in public ownership, particularly in strategic sectors.
Promoting Workers' Rights
• Establish a Department of Labour with a full Minister.
• Introduce a penalty points system against rogue employers who consistently violate labour law, with a range of penalties including a bar from eligibility for public contracts to removal from the companies.
• Increase regulation of the apprenticeship system and extend minimum wage legislation to cover apprentices.
• Legislate to establish rights and entitlements for migrant workers equivalent to those of host society workers.
• Immediately enact corporate manslaughter legislation.
An Equal Economy, Where Wealth is Shared
Raising Household Incomes
• Double the Living Alone Allowance.
• Increase the Family Income Supplement by €68 per week and make it an automatic payment
• Extend eligibility for the Back to Work Allowance to include those who are unemployed for more than 12 months.
• Extend the new Early Childcare Supplement to include children aged 6 to12.
• Ensure lone parents can keep their rent supplement for at least 3 years of full-time work and continually if they are in part-time employment.
• Abolish the means test for carers and substantially increase the Carer's Allowance.
• Introduce a Cost of Disability Payment.
Taxation Justice
• Keep those on or below the minimum wage out of the tax net, and set the minimum wage at, at least of 60% of average industrial earnings
• Keep those on or below the average industrial earnings within the standard rate tax band.
• Aggressively pursue tax evasion and invest adequate resources for tax collection and enforcement.
• Close all remaining legal loopholes that have allowed millionaires to pay no tax whatsoever.
• Introduce legislation to end tax exile status
• Remove tax exemptions except where the economic and social value outweighs the cost eg R&D.
• Negotiate for tax harmonisation across the island.
A New Emphasis on Non-Tax Revenue
• Reform the current exploration licensing and taxation regime and renegotiate oil and gas contracts.
• Establish a State oil, gas and mineral exploration company which would actively participate and invest in exploration
• Set a target for becoming a net exporter of electricity from renewable sources.
• Keep the ESB and all other public companies in public ownership.
• Negotiate at EU level for an exception to the EU State Aid Rules similar to that conceded to Germany, to assist post-partition reconstruction for reunification.
Responsible Spending of Public Wealth in the Public Interest
• Subject public spending not just to 'value for money' efficiency audits but also to regular effectiveness audits against social and economic goals.
• Empower the Comptroller and Auditor General to examine all existing PPP projects for cost overruns, revenue foregone and wastage against long-term cost and profit projections.
• Establish an All-Ireland Procurement and Purchasing Agency accountable to the Dáil, Assembly and All-Ireland Ministerial Council to introduce greater efficiencies.
Equality for Rural Communities
• Make rural regeneration and balanced regional development a priority.
• Immediately commission an All-Ireland Rural White Paper.
• Actively promote and support entrepreneurship within rural communities, especially co-operative and other 'social economy' ventures.
• Provide greater access to start-up incentives for rural businesses.
• Reform the planning laws to support the right of rural dwellers to build on their own land or to purchase and build locally.
• Enhance investment in rural public transport, and ensure planned delivery of an all-Ireland road and rail network, with a focus on accelerated development in the western and border regions.
Revitalising Irish Agriculture
• Ensure that the maximum number of people continue farming, while stemming the shift towards large scale factory style farming.
• Oppose importation of cheap meat that fails to meet the strict food safety regulations imposed here.
• Work to amend the Single Farm Payment regulations to raise the lower income limit and impose a higher income limit, in order to redirect EU funds and ensure a decent livelihood for smaller farmers.
• Assist farm diversification into new areas eg organic farming and renewable energy.
• Keep Ireland as a whole GM crop-free
• Facilitate the conversion of the Carlow and Mallow sugar plants to biofuel production.
• Give farmers adequate notice prior to farm inspections.
A Sustainable Future for the Irish Fisheries
• Establish a separate Ministry for the Marine and Natural Resources with a full Minister.
• Negotiate radical reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, with the aim of returning the greater part of management of Irish fisheries back into Irish hands.
• Introduce a transparent system of issuing of licences, quota and tonnage.
• Conserve Irish fish stocks by reducing the quota available to foreign fleets and introduce proper independent scientific monitoring of stocks.
• Ensure adequate compensation for Driftnet Salmon Fishers.
Community Safety
• Establish a fully independent Garda Ombudsperson, a Garda Board for civilian management oversight and Community Policing Partnerships.
• Civilianise appropriate tasks to allow the redeployment of all fully trained Gardaí to fight crime and serve their communities.
• Establish a system of consistent victim liaison to ensure that victims, especially of violent crimes, are kept fully informed throughout the investigation and prosecution process.
• Ensure more consistent prosecution of sexual assault, rape and domestic violence.
• Adopt a comprehensive strategy to effectively combat anti-social behaviour including social investment in marginalised areas, early intervention for those at risk of offending, community policing and effective rehabilitation.
• Introduce community restorative justice alternatives for most non-violent offenders.
♣ Ensure robust enforcement of the law and prosecution of offenders involved in criminal behaviour.
• Repeal the Offences Against the State Acts and dissolve the Special Criminal Court
• Continue to negotiate the establishment of an effective all-Ireland sex offenders registry.
Strengthening Human Rights Protections
• Introduce the All-Ireland Charter of Rights provided for under the Good Friday Agreement.
• Adequately fund the Equality Authority and Equality Tribunal.
• Adopt binding gender targets of at least 40% for each gender on the boards of all state and semi-state bodies, the judiciary, and the Cabinet.
• Amend the 1937 Constitution to expressly recognise children's rights
• Establish an Ombudsperson for Older People.
• Establish a Disability Strategy Implementation and Monitoring Unit within the Department of the Taoiseach, to set annual targets towards full delivery by 2016.
• Reinstate previous funding levels for anti-racism initiatives and provide annual increases as necessary.
• Repeal the sections of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2002 that criminalise the Traveller way of life.
• End the policy of dispersal and the Direct Provision System and extend the right to work and pay taxes to all asylum seekers while their applications are being processed.
• Introduce legislation to permit and recognise same-sex marriage, to provide full and equal recognition of all civil partnerships in law and recognise the right of same-sex couples to adopt children in the same manner as heterosexual couples.
A Better Quality of Life
A Clean Environment is a Right
• Campaign to secure the complete closure of Sellafield.
• Ban the development of municipal incinerators in Ireland and set progressive time-framed targets to minimise waste going to landfill.
• Introduce legislation to compel industrial and commercial producers of waste to reduce waste production in a planned, targeted and accountable manner.
• Mandate and support all councils to produce waste reduction strategies including a minimum target of 50% recycling and introduce a total ban on disposal of compostable waste in landfills by 2010.
• Support the introduction of 100% capital and maintenance grants for civic recycling initiatives.
• Legislate to regulate for best practice environmental standards for all new buildings, and work towards the target of zero carbon homes by 2015.
• Bring all water supplies up to the highest EU standard.
A Serious Approach to the Drugs Crisis
• Make adequate resources to Local Drugs Task Forces and Rural Drugs Task Forces.
• Combat cocaine use and roll out cocaine treatment projects.
• Introduce widespread and well-resourced drugs education programmes and awareness campaigns for children and parents.
• Continue to work directly with families and communities worst-affected by drug and alcohol use and by the illegal drugs trade.
• Commit adequate funding to significantly expand the availability of drug treatment and to eliminate waiting lists for treatment.
• Provide additional supports for the families of drug users, such as grandparents caring for grandchildren.
• Continue to pursue major drug traffickers and allocate funds seized from them for community development.
• Increase the resources available to An Garda Síochána drugs units.
Ag Cur an Ghaeilge ar ais i mBéal an Phobail
• Implement the Official Languages Act 2003 in full.
• Agree a 10 year All-Ireland Irish Language Development Plan focusing on the preservation and advancement of the language.
• Enhance Irish medium education and Irish language learning.
• Ensure that every member of the 'New Irish' community has the opportunity to learn Irish.
• Allocate more funding to Foras na Gaeilge.
• Increase funding for TG4 in keeping with its position as the primary Irish language broadcaster.
• Put in place a 10 year monitoring programme for the Gaeltacht and a mechanism to officially recognise 'Breac-Ghaeltachtaí' throughout the island.
Supporting Arts and Culture
• Restore funding to the levels recommended by the Arts Plan, reach a minimum investment target of 1% total budgetary spend
• Increase support to community festivals.
• Make arts and culture a new area of formal all-Ireland co-operation under the Good Friday Agreement, and actively promote the State as a cultural visitor destination within an all-Ireland framework.
Demilitarisation and Solidarity for a Better World
• Enshrine neutrality in the Constitution
• Ensure Irish troops train and serve abroad only under the auspices and leadership of the United Nations, and only with prior Dáil approval.
• Prohibit use of Irish airports, airspace, seaports, or territorial waters for preparation for war or other armed conflict by foreign powers or to facilitate any aspect of illegal acts such as the US Government's programme of 'extraordinary rendition'.
• Withdraw from the EU Rapid Reaction Force, Battle Groups and NATO's Partnership for Peace.
• Incrementally increase Overseas Development Assistance to 1% of GNP by 2010, ring-fence the ODA budget and keep all such aid un-tied.
The Peace Process the Sinn Féin leadership initiated well over a decade ago has positively transformed the Irish political landscape. Problems that only ten years ago seemed intractable are now being addressed one by one. In the post-Good Friday Agreement period, increased all-Ireland co-operation is creating huge opportunities for everyone. Sinn Féin has driven the peace process. As the only all-Ireland party, we continue to drive the agenda for positive change.
Since we last went before the people of the 26 Counties to seek a mandate in 2004, the IRA has taken a historic unilateral initiative that has opened unprecedented democratic opportunities. Subsequently, Sinn Féin negotiators secured additional progress on the delivery of the Good Friday Agreement.
We began 2007 by taking our own historic unilateral initiative on policing.
More recently Sinn Féin made an agreement with the DUP and the historic first public meeting between Sinn Féin and the DUP took place in Stormont. Since then Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley have been working together to prepare for the return of the power-sharing institutions.
Sinn Féin is the largest nationalist party in the northern Assembly and the Executive with a Deputy First Minister and Junior Minister, a Minister for Education, a Minister for Agriculture and a Minister for Regional Development. We have commenced the process of jointly governing the 6 Counties and the all-Ireland political institutions and we are committed to do our part to ensure this succeeds. Our negotiators also continue to work tirelessly to bring about further progress in ongoing talks with the Irish and British Governments and with unionists.
Over the past decade, republicans have proven our ability to negotiate successfully. We have shown leadership by taking major and sometimes difficult decisions in the national interest. Sinn Féin has brought a new energy and a new dynamic to Irish politics and there is a lot more we want to deliver.
One of the best ways for Irish citizens to assist further progress in the process towards a lasting peace, reconciliation and unity is a strong vote for Sinn Féin in this general election. A persuasive Sinn Féin mandate in the 26 Counties will further strengthen the hand of our negotiators, weaken partition and build greater all-Ireland links, leading us closer than ever before to the reintegration of our nation.
All political parties claim to support peace and unity - Sinn Féin delivers. We will continue to lead in the Peace Process and to act as Irish unity's champion in the new Dáil.
The Sinn Féin Platform on Irish Unity
Sinn Féin has delivered on our promise to provide a peaceful strategy to achieve our central objective of Irish unity and independence. It is essential that we build on the achievements to date by taking the next steps. The vast majority of people on the island now recognise that partition is restricting political, economic and social potential. There is growing support for all-Ireland planning in both the public and private sectors and in civic society. As a result we now see significant practical initiatives with the capacity to improve everyday life for all, such as the introduction of an all-Ireland energy market. Clearly, support for reunification is growing and it is time to start the real work to prepare the transition to unity.
We believe there is a political onus and national responsibility on the Irish Government to formulate and implement a specific strategy to promote and achieve the democratic objectives of national self-determination, Irish territorial reunification, political independence, sovereignty, and national reconciliation.
We propose that the incoming Irish Government begin the practical planning now by producing a Green Paper on Irish Unity. This should commence with a process of comprehensive consultation, engagement, persuasion and negotiation with a view to securing active and widespread support for a future United Ireland. By definition such a process must involve all the people of this island, including all of the social partners that constitute civil society. It must involve a process of dialogue with unionists on the basis of mutual respect. It must by necessity involve a negotiation with the British Government and a meaningful and substantial Peace Dividend from both Governments. It also needs to have an international dimension seeking specific forms of support from popular and political opinion in Britain, the Irish diaspora and the international community.
In addition to the proposed Green Paper process, we would immediately extend representation and the franchise to the 6 Counties electorate, engage in all-Ireland economic planning and pursue a focused programme of direct positive engagement with unionists.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil team consistently urged the Taoiseach and Government Ministers to pursue the Peace Process and the All-Ireland Agenda ever more vigorously, especially in their dealings with the British Government.
• We urged full inquiries into the policy of collusion by which British forces and their agents carried out hundreds of killings, including many in the 26 Counties between 1972 and 1994.
• We backed the demands of Justice for the Forgotten and the family of Cllr. Eddie Fullerton, among others, for the truth about British collusion in murders in this State.
• We published proposals for a Green Paper on Irish Unity, tabled a Dáil motion to this effect and sponsored a full-scale Dáil debate on this motion - the first such debate in decades.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
A Green Paper on Irish Unity
• Complete a Green Paper on Irish Unity within one year, identifying steps and measures to promote and assist a successful transition to a United Ireland.
• Give all stakeholders in society on the island an opportunity to take ownership of the debate on the Green Paper and to participate in the process this initiates.
• Appoint a Minister of State with the dedicated and specific responsibility of driving forward and developing policy options and strategies to advance the outcomes of the Green Paper and to direct and co-ordinate the Government's all-Ireland policies across Departments.
• Refer the Green Paper to a dedicated Joint Committee of the Oireachtas on Irish Unity to monitor, assess and report progress on implementation.
Extension of Representation and Franchise to the 6 Counties
• Introduce 6 County elected representation in the Houses of the Oireachtas.
• Legislate to extend to the 6 County electorate the right to vote in Presidential elections.
Delivering Justice for Victims of Collusion
• Continue to demand full independent and public inquiries into British state collusion and demand British Government co-operation with such inquiries.
• Seek proper support for the families of those killed as a result of collusion.
All-Ireland Economic Planning and Unionist Engagement
• Begin the process of co-ordinating economic development, service provision and planning on an all-Ireland basis.
• Produce a genuine National Development Plan.
• Include the business and agricultural sectors, the trade unions, and the community and NGO sectors in this all-Ireland planning process.
• Commence a specific process of outreach to the unionist community to involve them in this planning as equal partners, in keeping with the principles outlined in Sinn Féin's new Charter for Unionist Engagement.
Without question, Sinn Féin is the party with the greatest commitment to strengthening the All-Ireland political institutions. To advance this priority Sinn Féin in government will work to:
• Expand the areas of all-Ireland co-operation and increase the number of all-Ireland Implementation Bodies.
• Establish the All-Ireland Inter-Parliamentary Forum.
• Establish a Six County Civic Forum and the All-Ireland Consultative Civic Forum.
• Ensure maximum co-ordination and co-operation between the human rights and equality bodies north and south and real progress towards the All-Ireland Charter of Rights.
• Pursue a comprehensive programme to maximise all-Ireland economic and social planning across a range of areas outlined in the following sections of this manifesto.
• Secure a referendum on Irish Unity to be held simultaneously, north and south.
When people elect a Government to act on their behalf and pay taxes to fund Government initiatives and programmes, they rightly expect and deserve provision of public services in return. That is what the Social Contract is all about. In Celtic Tiger Ireland, however, essential services are not made available equally to all. Rather, the quality of services available to you depends increasingly on your ability to pay over and above your taxes. Despite ample wealth in the State, public provision is shrinking and double taxation for services in the form of service charges and user fees is on the rise. The net result is unequal two-tier healthcare, housing, education and childcare.
Sinn Féin believes that one of the most fundamental roles of Government is to make world class public services - including and especially the basics: healthcare, housing, education and childcare - equally available to all as of right. This is what we are committed to deliver for the people of Ireland.
Healthcare is a Right
Sinn Féin believes that healthcare is a fundamental human right. We now have the resources in this State to realise this right for everyone: not only to ensure that all people have equal access to world class health services, but also to effectively tackle the factors leading to poor health for many - social and economic inequality.
While health spending has increased under the current Government, they have stubbornly maintained the unequal two-tier public-private system, thus wasting public money in a system that is not only inequitable but inefficient. The symptoms of consequent crisis in our health services are well known - manifested in the scandalous situation in A&E units, long waiting lists and the shortage of beds and staff.
In an era of unprecedented wealth and spending on healthcare the continued inequalities in health and in access to health services are inexcusable. They are an indictment of successive Governments run by all the establishment parties.
Many parties now make claims about opposing the two-tier health system. But only Sinn Féin has a credible plan to establish healthcare on the basis of full equality.
The Sinn Féin Healthcare Reform Package
Sinn Féin proposes a new universal public health system for Ireland that provides care to all free at the point of delivery, on the basis of need alone, and funded from general fair and progressive taxation.
We are also proposing fundamental re-orientation of the health system to adopt a central focus on prevention, health promotion and primary care (including mental healthcare and full spectrum addiction treatment services), and on ultimately eliminating the underlying social and structural causes of ill-health and premature death, such as poverty and inequality.
We plan to restructure the health service to reconfigure delivery on an all-Ireland basis to make it more efficient and locally accessible, by introducing a single All-Ireland Strategic Health Executive to oversee all services. And we plan to make delivery more responsive to the communities served by establishing locally accountable Community Health Partnerships bringing together public representatives, service users, advocates, health professionals and systems experts to collectively manage delivery of all local health services on the basis of need.
We plan to enshrine the right to healthcare in the 1937 Constitution, in a future All-Ireland Charter of Rights and in legislation, making this a fully enforceable right in Irish courts. We also plan to establish a Health Ombudsman to provide an administrative remedy short of the courts, in the interests of speedier and less expensive resolution of disputes and redress regarding violations of the right to healthcare.
Furthermore, we will introduce equality-proofing and human rights-proofing to all health policy, law and practice, and public health-proofing of other areas of law and policy. Of course, pursuing the other aspects of our economic and social programme will increase social and economic equality and therefore have a positive impact on health outcomes for all our people.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team stood firm in support of the public system and public patients and led the fight against privatisation, including the allocation of land at public hospital sites to developers of private hospitals - a scheme that has no mandate and is being fast-tracked in the run-up to the general election.
• We fully supported people campaigning across the State for services to be retained in their local hospitals
• We initiated a Dáil debate on the failures of the current healthcare system and used the opportunity to set out our positive proposals for a universal health system based on equal access for all.
• With our party, we launched a campaign for Healthcare as a Right, meeting healthcare workers, local groups and the general public throughout Ireland.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
A Phased Introduction of Universal Healthcare as a Right
• Begin to reverse privatisation of healthcare by immediately ending tax breaks for private hospitals and the land gift scheme and investing all health funding in the public system.
• Provide full medical cards for all under the poverty line and all under-18s (as a transitional measure towards a fully universal public access service) in the first Sinn Féin Budget.
• Make all new hospital consultant posts public-only.
• Ensure working conditions, promotion prospects and remuneration sufficient to maintain trained staff in the public service, halting the exodus from the public system and from the country.
• Immediately establish a Healthcare Funding Commission to report within a reasonable time-frame on the projected costs of the transition to an all-Ireland system of universal healthcare provision (taking into account all spending on health services under the current systems, including state funding and spending on private insurance), and to make recommendations on how the State can best harness our resources in the interests of more equitable and efficient delivery.
• Hold a referendum to amend the current 1937 Irish Constitution to include the right to healthcare.
A New Emphasis on Primary Care and Prevention
• Develop a network of modern and accessible Primary Care Treatment Centres run by properly-resourced multi-disciplinary and multi-agency Primary Care Teams. Start this process by completing the rollout of the Primary Care Centres promised throughout the State on an accelerated timetable.
• Appoint salaried GPs to work in the Primary Care Teams and negotiate to phase in salaried contracts for all other GPs.
• Make advanced screening services (ie national breast and cervical cancer screening) available locally, promptly and widely - based on risk criteria rather than age alone - to ensure early detection of cancers and other illnesses.
Equality in Hospital Care
• Introduce a timetabled and fully resourced strategy to deliver into the public hospital system the additional 3,000 hospital beds required.
• Plan for enhanced provision of essential public nursing home beds, community care facilities and home care, to take pressure off A&Es and ensure care delivery in the most appropriate setting.
• Halt the over-centralisation of hospital facilities, reverse cutbacks in services at local hospitals, and institute a national plan for the provision and resourcing of hospital care, including clear access targets within an equality framework.
• Configure all hospitals to ensure that emergency services are available as locally as possible. For the vast majority of the population, these services should be located less than 45 minutes travel time away. No one should be more than one hour's travel time from an A&E unit when the three critical access factors are taken into account: hospital location, road conditions and ambulance provision.
• Invest significantly in the ambulance service, including upgrading of the existing fleet, and introduce an air ambulance fleet.
A New Emphasis on Mental Healthcare
• Fully implement the Mental Health Act 2001 and the recommendations of the Government's Mental Health Expert Group as set out in their report A Vision for Change (2006).
• Introduce a spending programme to counteract decades of underfunding, followed by ring-fencing at least 12% of the health budget for mental health services, as recommended by the UN World Health Organisation.
• Reconfigure primary, secondary and children's/adolescent mental healthcare services to manage a shift away from secondary services over the next 5-10 years, so that the vast majority of mental healthcare is provided by Primary Mental Healthcare Teams (providing a 24 hour service).
• Establish a network of step-down services and other comprehensive community supports for transition out of secondary care facilities.
• Establish an All-Ireland Mental Health Commission to promote and implement the best standards of care within the mental health services and to fund research on an all-Ireland basis.
Suicide Prevention
• Invest in further clinical and community-based research on suicide prevention and produce a fully resourced, comprehensive All-Ireland Suicide Prevention Strategy.
Full-Spectrum Drug and Alcohol Treatment Services
• Expand the spectrum of drug and alcohol treatment services available and dedicate adequate funding to eliminate treatment waiting lists.
Rights-Based Hospice and Palliative Care
• Establish a timetable for implementation of the 2001 Report of the National Advisory Committee on Palliative Care.
• Ensure regional equity in the delivery of hospice and other palliative services.
• Introduce a state-funded scheme for Compassionate Care Leave.
• Provide funding for the development of paediatric palliative care.
Justice for Victims of Healthcare-Related Scandals
• Establish a statutory inquiry into the scandal of organ retention in the Irish health system.
• Carry out an investigation into the barbaric practice of symphisiotomy.
New National Children's Hospital
• Proceed with the new National Children's Hospital at the Mater Hospital site as a centre for provision of tertiary paediatric services. This new hospital should provide services on an all-Ireland basis and should include services that are not currently provided on the island of Ireland and for which children have to travel abroad.
• Retain the maximum possible number of paediatric services and in-patient beds at Tallaght Hospital. Prevent the closure of the current Children's Hospital there.
• Retain Crumlin Children's Hospital as a child-focussed healthcare facility, including primary, secondary and tertiary care for children.
• Increase the overall hospital bed capacity for children.
• Put in place a coherent structure to co-ordinate acute hospital services in the Dublin region, maximising the resources in all the hospitals in the capital to ensure their most effective use.
• Provide appropriate paediatric hospital services in the regions.
Housing is a Right
Sinn Féin believes that housing, like healthcare, is a basic inalienable human right. We now have the resources to realise this right for everyone: to ensure that all people have access to adequate and appropriate, secure accommodation, and also to end exploitation by unscrupulous landlords, mortgage lenders, estate agents and management companies. Most importantly, we have the means to end homelessness in Ireland for good.
Current Government policy favours wealthy developers, speculators and landowners over first-time and principal home buyers and particularly over individuals and families on lower incomes who are priced out of the housing market. Thus they find themselves on social housing waiting lists or locked into highly risky 100% mortgages they cannot afford, or renting substandard properties at high rents from unscrupulous and largely unregulated landlords, or at worst on the street. This policy has created a crisis in housing with over 43,000 households on local authority waiting lists - some for up to seven years - and thousands of homeless people. Meanwhile one in seven houses in the State lies vacant.
Only Sinn Féin has a credible plan to make housing available to all on the basis of full equality.
The Sinn Féin Housing Reform Package
Sinn Féin proposes fundamental reform to ensure that everyone has equal access to adequate, appropriate and affordable accommodation as of right. We will bring social housing to the centre of provision, with an ambitious five year social housing new build programme. We propose radical complementary measures to intervene in the housing market to prevent the anti-social private housing speculation that fuels house price inflation to ensure that more affordable housing is available and is actually affordable. We are also proposing the introduction of a more robust and comprehensive system of tenant rights including rent control.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team called on the Government to adopt and implement the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) recommendations on the provision of social housing.
• We proposed a legislative amendment to section 5 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004, proposing a requirement to price housing units designated as 'affordable' at cost-price, meaning a price equal to the cost of construction.
• We published and debated legislation to remove the 'get-out clauses' for developers under the Planning and Development Acts that allow them to pay off local authorities rather than provide social and affordable housing units (the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2006).
• We published and debated legislation to introduce a constitutional right to housing (the Twenty-Seventh Amendment of the Constitution (No. 2) Bill 2003, which sought to amend Article 40 of the 1937 Constitution).
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
The Right to Housing
• Hold a referendum to add the right to adequate and appropriate housing in the 1937 Constitution.
• Establish a Housing Ombudsman to provide an administrative remedy short of the courts.
• Establish a National Housing Strategy and a National Housing Agency to plan and regulate all aspects of housing provision on an all-Ireland basis.
• Establish a Department of Housing with a full Minister.
Increase Supply of Social and Affordable Homes
• Construct 70,000 new units by 2012 to accommodate social housing need (a new
build rate of approximately 14,000 per annum).
• Amend the Planning and Development Act (2002) to remove the 'get-out clauses' for developers in Part V, and stipulate that all new developments must allocate 30% to social and affordable housing, with at least 10% social and at least 10% affordable housing.
• Oppose any sale of public land to private developers by local authorities in the absence of adequate social housing provision and reject any local authority housing plan that does not contain social and/or affordable housing or does not promote social inclusion.
• Plan to end local authority waiting lists, with a target to supply suitable accommodation to 70% within two years.
• Legislate to require that any social housing stock sold is replaced on a unit-for-unit basis, with the profits received by local government ring-fenced and matched by central government to replenish social housing stock.
• Use Compulsory Purchase Orders to acquire land, derelict properties and properties vacant for 12 months or more for social housing, allowing a fair and transparent appeals procedure.
Ending Homelessness
• Develop an All-Ireland Strategy on Homelessness, with meaningful targets and adequate resources to progressively reduce and eliminate homelessness (beginning with elimination of street homelessness by the year 2010).
• Put the existing homelessness strategies and Local Homelessness Action Plans on a statutory footing.
• Honour the commitment made in Towards 2016 that by 2010 nobody will be living in emergency accommodation for longer than an actual emergency.
Making Principal Home Ownership more Accessible
• Legislate to ensure that housing units designated as 'affordable' are priced at cost-price.
• Increase mortgage interest relief for first time mortgage-holders and principle home owners who earn up to the average industrial wage.
• Take strong action against speculative practices that inflate housing prices, such as abolishing tax incentives that effectively encourage unfair competition between investors and first-time or principal home buyers, introducing a tax on windfall gains from planning decisions in recognition and compensation for betterment by the State and imposing a statutory ceiling on the price of land zoned for housing.
• Support and promote co-operative housing ownership.
• Establish Universal Design and Lifetime Adaptability Guidelines and incorporate them as legal a requirement for all new build houses, with a national monitoring system for implementation.
Protect the rights of Principal Home Owners
• Create a Housing Agency to establish legally enforceable codes of practice for developers, house builders and vendors, mortgage brokers, estate agents, auctioneers and solicitors.
• Establish a Housing Ombudsperson with a remit to monitor and enforce the relevant codes of conduct, provide an effective remedy short of the courts, monitor the implementation of housing and planning legislation, monitor changes in house prices, mortgage interest rates and professional fees, support enforcement of snag lists and ensure an end to gazumping.
• Strengthen regulation of property management companies, and legislate to ensure all public areas are managed by the local authority and not outsourced to private management.
• Legislate to improve the standard of housing and apartments including increasing the minimum size of one bed and two bed apartments, increasing the ceiling height, ensuring that balconies are recessed into apartment space and ensuring that social and affordable housing is built to the same standard as private housing in the same development.
A Tenants' Rights Charter
• Introduce a system of comprehensive legal protection for tenants, including: a system to regulate, monitor and enforce security of tenure standards (regarding length of leases, deposits and evictions), accommodation standards (including a right to maintenance and repairs) and a system of rent control for fair rent.
• Legislate for the power to bar unscrupulous landlords from letting property.
Sustainable Warm Homes
• Fully enforce environmental sustainability regulations on new build and review these to ensure they are sufficiently robust. Ensure all new social housing is fitted with energy-efficient alternative energy sources.
• Introduce Low Income Full Cost Residential Renewable Energy Grants for Fuel Allowance recipients, increase the Greener Homes Scheme grants to cover a greater percentage of approved cost, and extend the Warmer Homes Scheme to meet the needs of an additional 10,000 homes a year.
Promoting Housing for Sustainable Rural Communities
• Reform the planning laws to support the right of rural dwellers to build on their own land or to purchase and build locally.
• Create a grant scheme to encourage first-time house buyers in rural areas to renovate derelict houses.
• Expand of the Rural Cottage Scheme.
Sustainable, Safe Communities
• Provide for direct community participation in housing planning by establishing statutory Local Community Planning Fora.
• Legislate to ensure that a community's social needs (including local access to employment, to services such as public transportation, healthcare centres, childcare centres and schools and to amenities such as public play and recreation areas, and shopping and social centres) are incorporated into all housing schemes from the earliest stage.
• Support high-density housing developments only where they are designed to support family living, located in mixed tenure areas, have good transport links, shops, schools, essential services and sufficient open public spaces.
• Introduce a positive area-based 'Good Community Agreements' scheme involving both public and private tenants and property owners, to enhance community input, participation and ownership of local strategies to prevent and tackle criminal and anti-social behaviour.
• Ensure consistent criminal sanction against criminal behaviour and that eviction is not used in place of prosecution.
Education - Reaching Our Full Potential
Sinn Féin believes that education is a basic and fundamental human right. Education should be free universally available as of right and assist everyone without exception to develop her or his full potential.
Instead of guaranteeing everyone equal access to the highest standard of education, current Government policy has entrenched educational inequalities and a two-tier system. Educational expenditure is one of the lowest as a percentage of income.
More than one in four primary school pupils are being taught in overcrowded classrooms and many are taught in run-down facilities. Too many children still go to school hungry. Almost one quarter of children of working-class parents do not sit the Leaving Certificate. The numbers leaving school without qualifications have remained unchanged since the 1990s, and an estimated 1,000 students per year cannot even make the transition from primary to secondary education. Approximately one quarter of the adult population have literacy and numeracy problems. Meanwhile taxpayers pay €80 million per annum to subsidise the private education system, even though the children of the majority will never have a chance to attend these exclusive fee-paying schools.
Sinn Féin has a credible plan and the political will to make education available to all as of right, on the basis of full equality.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team introduced a motion regarding the provision of education for children with special needs, pressed the Minister for Education and Science to increase resources for the National Educational Psychological Services and to reduce waiting times for children to be assessed, demanded more speech and language therapists and for their placement under the remit of the Department of Education and Science, and urged the Minister to protect the rights and entitlements of children with autism and special needs and to open the Middletown Centre of Excellence for Autism.
• We supported the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) campaign to reduce class sizes, and pressed for more funding for modernising and constructing school buildings and other educational facilities.
• We called for an increase in the maintenance grant for third level students to reflect the true cost of living.
• We urged the Minister to increase resources for adult literacy, proposed a progressive national strategy on lifelong and work-based learning focused at those most in need of training, re-training and upskilling, pushed for the abolition of part-time fees and advocated the introduction of paid educational leave.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
Increased Public Investment in Education
• Spend at least 6% of GDP on education, in keeping with best international practice.
• Increase funding per pupil at pre-school and primary level so that expenditure will be more equal to that at third level, ensuring that schools in areas of high disadvantage receive proportionately more funding and resources.
• Review the current system of ownership and management of schools with a view to ensuring equitable education for all, sufficient school places for all pupils wherever they live and the best management of schools.
• Set a target to eliminate the need for subsidy of educational provision by charitable organisations (in the form of schoolbooks and school breakfasts and lunches) within the lifetime of the next Dáil.
• Place a new emphasis in the school curriculum at primary and secondary on civic education, the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and encouragement of voluntary activity across society. Education needs to prepare children for life and encourage creativity and human thought and not just be about providing the next generation of workers.
Increased Investment in Early Years Education
• Immediately extend the Early Start pre-school project to all schools with pupils from disadvantaged areas, with a maximum child to adult ratio of 12:1.
• Introduce a universal pre-school session of 3.5 hours per day, five days a week for all children aged 3-5 years (see also next section on childcare).
Increased Investment in Primary Level and Reduced Class Sizes
• Invest towards implementation of a pupil-teacher ratio of 15:1 in all primary schools. As a first step, immediately reduce all class sizes for children under 9 years of age to a maximum of 20 pupils.
• Legislate, plan and budget for immediate upgrading of substandard schools and building of premises where required. Ensure that the practice of educating children in prefab buildings can be eliminated within the lifetime of the next Dáil.
• Introduce a standard statewide school breakfast and lunch programme to supply nutritious food free of charge to schoolchildren.
• Provide adequate funding for the National Education Welfare Board to increase the number of Educational Welfare Officers to combat school absenteeism and low attendance.
• Provide greater support for children with additional needs.
Increased Investment and Reform in Post-Primary Education
• Immediately establish a primary school database to track the transition of students from primary to secondary school and increase funding for schools with low Leaving Certificate completion rates.
• Invest to progressively reduce class sizes at post-primary level.
• Increase internet use for educational purposes and reduce the computer/student ratio to 1:5 by substantially increasing investment in ICT provision for schools to €130 per pupil.
• End the Junior and Leaving Certificate examination and points system in favour of more continual assessment.
• End the practice of School League Tables
Guaranteed Right to Free Education
• Extend the school book rental scheme nationwide.
• Introduce a new Back to School Allowance that absorbs the current Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance and introduces an additional payment for books and other expenses to more accurately reflect the true costs of sending a child to school. Extend eligibility for this scheme to all families in receipt of Family Income Supplement in addition to those in receipt of social welfare.
• Keep funding for schools fully public and under democratic control instead of relying on the private sector to protect schoolchildren from manipulative advertising and corporate agendas.
Support for Multi-Denominational Schools and Facilitation of Cross-Border Access
• Allocate adequate funding for the Educate Together schools.
• Facilitate cross-border access to the school that is geographically closer.
• Eliminate cross-border fees affecting third level students from the 26 Counties who choose to study in the 6 Counties and vice versa.
Support for Special Needs Education
• Allocate more resources for the National Educational Psychological Service to reduce waiting time for assessment and subsequent early detection of special educational needs.
• Fund appropriate supports within mainstream classrooms for children with special needs. This should include adequate provision of special needs assistants where required.
• Adopt an all-Ireland approach to securing rights and entitlements for those with autism through a rights-based legislative framework. Prioritise action on autism to ensure the earliest intervention for all who need it, access to Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) and enhanced funding for people with autism, their carers and support organisations.
• Deliver the All-Ireland Centre of Excellence for Autism at Middletown, Co. Armagh, which was initiated by Martin McGuinness when he was Education Minister.
Educational Equality for Traveller Children
• Fully implement the Traveller Education Strategy and develop supplementary national education strategies for the inclusion of Traveller, Roma and other ethnic groups as necessary to systematically address segregation and combat discrimination, prejudice and racism in the educational setting.
Positive Educational Integration of International Newcomer Children
• Incorporate teaching of different cultures, beliefs and languages into the mainstream curriculum to foster interculturalism.
• Improve training for ESL teachers and remove caps on the number of language support resource hours.
• Facilitate and assist children from immigrant backgrounds to learn and/or retain their native languages.
Promotion of Irish Language Learning and Irish Medium Education
• Improve provision of naíscoileanna and Gaelscoileanna.
• Keep the Irish language as a core subject at post-primary level with increased emphasis on oral and aural Irish.
• Provide facilities in every third-level institution for students to pursue their studies through the medium of Irish.
• Establish an Irish language university.
• Increase Government support for accessible and affordable Irish language learning for adults.
• Provide adequate training and support for all teachers to have a basic qualification in Irish, reform an Scrúdú le hAghaidh Cáilíocht sa Ghaeilge, and introduce certification and mobility measures to ensure that teachers of Irish from the 6 Counties can work in the 26 Counties and vice versa.
• Facilitate schoolchildren, particularly those from disadvantaged areas, to attend the Gaeltacht for immersion learning.
• Teach a second subject through Irish at primary school level such as PE, music or drama.
Increased Accessibility of Level/Further and Higher Education
• Set targets to increase the number of students in further and higher education, especially part-time and adult students and other groups (including people with disabilities and Travellers).
• Provide third level access programmes for schools with a low take-up of places.
• Provide adequate financial assistance and support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to complete their courses.
• Double the third level grant to reflect the true cost of living.
• Implement the McIver Report recommendations to ensure that Post Leaving Cert Colleges (PLCs) receive adequate resources and other supports necessary for optimal functioning.
• Establish a high-quality child care infrastructure to support adult education.
Illiteracy Eradication, Support for Adult Education and Workplace Learning
• Launch a vigorous all-Ireland adult literacy campaign with a substantially increased budget and a separate budget for the provision of ESL (English as a second language) to newcomer international adults.
• Provide adult education free to all up to third level qualifications, abolish part-time fees and grant part-time students eligibility for maintenance grants.
• Produce a coherent National Strategy on Workplace Learning.
• Introduce paid learning leave for workers with Junior Cert qualifications or less.
Supporting Our Teachers
• Support appropriate improvement in pay, terms and conditions.
• Cover costs for trainee teachers during their sixteen-week training placement for which they receive no pay.
• Provide increased funding for continuous professional development opportunities.
• Provide laptop computers to all teachers to facilitate greater effectiveness in lesson preparation and administration activities.
• Support teacher exchange schemes between the two jurisdictions on this island and work for the harmonisation of curricula.
• Recognise the seriousness of school indiscipline including bullying and allocate the necessary supports to assist schools and teachers to promote discipline in schools and ensure a positive learning environment.
Childcare is a Right
Sinn Féin believes that childcare is a right and policy must be geared to the needs of children and families rather than solely to the needs of the labour market. This State still has one of the lowest rates of childcare provision in the EU. Childcare costs almost one third of the average disposable income of a double-income family. It has become the 'second mortgage'. Many families on lower incomes either cannot get childcare at all, or else must pay a disproportionate amount of their income on massive weekly childcare bills. The lack of quality, affordable childcare prevents many women who wish to do so from working outside the home.
There is an urgent need to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for childcare provision. While some progress has been made since Sinn Féin first raised this demand in 2004 the Government has been far too slow to act and progress has come very late in its term of office.
The Sinn Féin Childcare Reform Package
We are proposing State-led provision of regulated comprehensive childcare, to be made available to all equally as of right, and funded by general direct and progressive taxation. This will include universal early childhood education and care, universal pre-school for 3 to 5s, and an afterschool childcare system.
In addition, there needs to be a greater recognition of the economic and social value of parents providing full-time care directly. All parents who wish to spend the first year caring for their child full-time should have the right to be enabled to do so, and employers should provide more flexibility for working parents to provide childcare directly when necessary, without penalty. We also propose that full-time family caring work should be recognised by the pension system through gender neutral Carers' Credits.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team sponsored a motion calling for the development of a comprehensive and accessible childcare infrastructure and a wide range of measures to assist parents, whether caring for children full-time in the home or working outside the home and using childcare services.
• We organized a conference on Best Practice in Childcare in Europe, hosted by our MEP MaryLou McDonald under the auspices of Sinn Féin's EU Parliamentary Group GUE/NGL.
• We consulted widely with the childcare sector before publishing our 2005 and 2006 pre-Budget priorities documents Putting Children First and distributed tens of thousands of newsletters throughout the country outlining our proposals and challenging the Government on its failure to deliver.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
A Phased Introduction of Universal Childcare as a Right
• Immediately provide for a universal pre-school session of 3.5 hours a day, five days a week for all children aged 3-5 years.
• Expand the National Childcare Investment Programme to increase capital, staffing and operational funding.
• Review the Childcare Facilities Guidelines for Planning Authorities and investigate the introduction of legislation in line with Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 to require developers to construct childcare facilities in housing developments and to transfer these to the ownership of the local authority upon completion.
• Establish a single accrediting body to inspect, evaluate and register all early childhood care and education providers.
• Establish national pay scale for early childhood care and education workers.
• Introduce universal training and accreditation for childcare workers.
• Centralise childcare provision under a single Department.
• Immediately establish a Childcare Funding Commission to report within a reasonable time-frame on the projected costs of the transition to a comprehensive all-Ireland system of universal childcare provision and to make recommendations on how the State can best harness our resources in the interests of more equitable and efficient delivery.
Expanded Support for Parents Providing Full-Time Care
• Set a time-frame for the introduction of one year at 100% of pay and introduce two weeks paid paternity leave entitlements (as an interim step towards four weeks leave) to harmonise these rights on an all-Ireland basis.
• Commission a study, including widespread public consultation, to determine the best way to support those parents whose work is in the home caring for their children.
• Introduce gender neutral Carers' Credits into the pension system.
Sinn Féin wants a strong economy that is sustainable into the future. We are committed to building and maintaining an economic environment that enhances enterprise and job creation and that provides favourable conditions for business to operate in and for people to live and work in. We believe in economic reintegration and sovereignty. We believe in regional equality and balanced regional development. We know that achieving all these things will require government intervention and planning and public investment.
Current Government policy has failed to address rising inflation, an over-reliance on foreign direct investment and an over-dependence on the construction sector. The government has failed to promote balanced regional development and infrastructure and service provision is still not good enough in many parts of the State. The levels of research and development (R&D) remain too low. There is no coherent plan for developing indigenous business or for training and upskilling the workforce. There is a worrying and unacceptable move by some employers to sustain competitiveness on the back of low-paid and exploited migrant workers, and the Government has not prevented this. Furthermore, the active dismantling of the public enterprise sector has impeded the economy overall: for example the privatisation of Eircom significantly slowed broadband rollout.
The Government has also failed to proactively plan to meet future challenges to the economy, including specifically planning for workers employed in vulnerable sectors. According to the National Competitiveness Council, in the five years to March 2006 manufacturing industries lost over 32,000 jobs. Many of the jobs lost in rural areas are not being replaced - with devastating local effects. Many of the new jobs cited by the Government as replacing those lost are only part-time. That's not good enough.
Sinn Féin is the party most committed to developing a regionally balanced, single economy. We are the only party who understands the urgency of diversifying our competitive base to safeguard our economic health. We are the party most committed to the development of the indigenous business sector and to protecting jobs and workers. Only Sinn Féin has a credible and comprehensive plan to grow and spread prosperity.
The Sinn Féin Platform for a Strong Economy
Sinn Féin's plan for a strong and sustainable economy involves five main priorities:
• building the all-Ireland economy including all-Ireland economic planning and balanced regional development;
• providing world class infrastructure and public services to enhance Irish competitiveness;
• supporting enterprise and job creation;
• ensuring that workers' rights are fully protected in this process;
• supporting agriculture which provides 20% of all jobs outside the public sector.
We plan to diversify the basis of Irish competitiveness by investing in infrastructure, public services, R&D and a highly educated workforce, and by intervening to bring down business costs in key areas such as energy and insurance.
We propose to assist indigenous business development by supporting small and medium enterprises, social economy (non-profit community or co-operatively-owned) enterprises, and strategic sectors identified for growth.
We plan to invest in research and development, entrepreneurship and innovation, enterprise clusters and networks, and education and training. We would focus on provision of infrastructure and investment on an all-Ireland basis. We also propose a single currency, a single labour market and a harmonised tax regime for the island.
Building the All-Ireland Economy
Economic reunification and sovereignty is at the core of Sinn Féin economic policy. Partition is wasteful and inefficient for the Irish economy as a whole. It involves duplication of government and public service structures. It imposes an unnecessary administrative burden on those wishing to do business in both jurisdictions. It means we are competing with ourselves for economic investment, as well as with the rest of the world.
It is now widely recognised that our economic future depends on moving towards all-Ireland economic integration. Despite the recent lipservice given to all-Ireland development by the Government parties in particular, Sinn Féin is unquestionably the party most committed to deliver this.
We also need to invest and plan for balanced regional development so that no part of the country is excluded from the benefits of economic growth. The State must make robust interventions to reverse the legacy of underinvestment and neglect and bring economic equality to the regions including and especially the Border, Midlands and West of the Shannon and the Bann. Sinn Féin's decision to choose the Ministry for Regional Development over other important portfolios signals the degree of priority we would accord this in Government.
The Sinn Féin Platform for Economic Reintegration and Regional Equality
Sinn Féin proposes to accelerate all-Ireland economic reintegration pending reunification.
We will take all necessary measures to end economic discrimination and regional inequality by proactively planning and investing to rebalance regional development.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team consistently made the case for the development of the all-Ireland economy across the public and private sectors, and for the integration of services, so that we maximise the resources of our island in all areas from the health services to the mobile phone network.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
Strengthening the All-Ireland Economy
• Adopt and implement pro-active all-Ireland economic development strategies, including an all-Ireland Economic Development Plan.
• Amalgamate inward investment agencies such as IDA Ireland and Invest NI into a single All-Ireland Investment Agency with a remit to assist indigenous industry. In the short term, ensure that they work together in a regionally-balanced manner, rather than competing with each other.
• Ensure maximum all-Ireland co-ordination in the use of EU funds.
• Harmonise the fiscal and legislative business environments.
• Begin an open debate on the benefits of one currency for the whole island.
• Remove obstacles to island-wide labour mobility.
Achieving Balanced Regional Development
• Adopt an all-Ireland Balanced Regional Development Strategy, based on objective need criteria, to end the imbalance in financial support for economic development and underinvestment in infrastructure along the border and in the west.
• Establish a public investment programme to ensure that Government departments and agencies not only deliver investment to the regions on an equal basis but proactively invest in historically neglected and underdeveloped areas to reverse the current imbalance.
• Create new incentives for private investment in areas of high unemployment or social deprivation.
Providing World Class Infrastructure
Infrastructure is one of the most important pillars of competitiveness in the global economy. The Government has failed to give this sufficient priority despite having the resources available. The state of infrastructure continues to be an impediment to further, more regionally-balanced growth.
Business and workers urgently need improved public transport provision, including an enhanced railway network. Our transport system has never fully recovered from the closure of rail lines in the 1950s and 60s. Public transport continues to be severely under-funded, traffic gridlock is a chronic problem, many areas lack railway provision and there is a virtual absence of a rural community-based transport system. Business and workers also need efficient and safe road networks, and road networks in turn need planned development and proper maintenance. Vast sums have been spent on construction and upgrading of national primary routes in recent years, but much of this development has been uneven and significant gaps remain. Enhanced air and sea port provision are also important to economic development, and they deserve greater attention and State-led development on an all-Ireland basis.
Business needs communications infrastructure for sustainable economic growth and competitiveness. We lag behind other states in broadband provision. As a result of the decision to privatise Eircom, we went from Europe's second highest telecommunications technological availability to 23rd in less than a decade. In addition, the imposition of cross-border mobile roaming charges is not reasonable and needs to end. An Post provides a valuable and effective service that reaches everyone throughout the State and deserves safeguarding and diversification, not closures.
Business also needs affordable and reliable energy sources. The Government has failed to develop domestic energy production and all-Ireland networks, and has allowed Ireland to remain overdependent on foreign and non-renewable energy supplies and thus captive to oil price rises. The domestic renewable energy sector is underdeveloped despite huge potential. Some areas of the country still do not have natural gas connectivity. In addition, rather than keeping electricity prices as low as possible in the public interest, the Government has presided over unreasonable ESB increases as part of a cynical exercise in fattening the company for private sale.
Sinn Féin is strongly committed to deliver world class infrastructure. We believe that infrastructure provision is one of the core responsibilities of Government.
The Sinn Féin Platform on Infrastructure Provision
Sinn Féin proposes to plan, configure and fund all infrastructure - transport, communications and energy - on an all-Ireland basis.
Development of these strategic sectors which are so essential to continued economic growth cannot be left to chance and to the market. They can be efficiently and cost-effectively run by the public sector and should not be privatised. We therefore propose that infrastructure development should be publicly funded and State-led.
We would prioritise environmentally sustainable public transport. In energy provision, we would support accelerated development of affordable renewable energy as a priority as this is the way of the future, and will also enhance increased Irish energy independence and we would bring Ireland onto the right side of the 'digital divide'.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team rejected the privatisation of our public transport system and called for an increase in the subvention to Bus Átha Cliath and Bus Éireann in order to acquire more much-needed buses.
• We sponsored a motion and Dáil debate opposing the privatisation of our national airline and raised the concerns of Aer Lingus workers.
• We called for increased rail usage to distribute freight and take trucks off our already congested roads, and called for the speedy completion of the Western Rail Corridor.
• We expressed our opposition to motorway and road tolls.
• We opposed the privatisation of Eircom and criticised the Government's abysmal telecommunications record on broadband uptake and under-provision in rural areas.
• We urged Minister to end the rip-off of mobile phone customers and abolish roaming charges, a major problem in border areas.
• We put pressure on the Minister for Communications to intervene to stop the closure of post offices, especially in rural areas.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
Increased Investment in an All-Ireland Public Transport Network
• Increase investment in public transport, reject privatisation, make service more frequent and keep fares affordable.
• Reverse the policy of phasing out rail freight and institute a full review and restoration of this energy-efficient form of transport.
• Reopen many of the rail lines closed in the mid to late twentieth century, and plan for an extensive expansion of an all-Ireland rail network on an accelerated basis, including an extended Western Rail Corridor serving Donegal and Derry, the Derry-Dublin rail link, and the West Cork railway network.
• Prioritise rapid construction of rail/metro links to Dublin Airport and development of the Heuston-Connolly rail link.
• Develop a rail link to Shannon Airport, a Dublin-Navan rail link and upgrade the Derry-Belfast rail link.
• Increase funding and provision of buses in rural areas and provide 500 extra buses for Bus Átha Cliath.
• Legislate for mandatory public transport provision, including park-and-ride facilities, to be factored into all major housing developments at the earliest planning stages.
• Legislate and budget to ensure that all public transport is accessible to people with disabilities.
Building an All-Ireland Road Network
• Build a North-West Motorway/high speed dual carriageway serving the route from Dublin to Donegal/Derry.
• Complete the M3 to serve the hard-pressed commuters of Meath and re-route it away from Tara, one of the nation's most important historical sites.
• Repeal the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006, which undemocratically restricts the ability of citizens to challenge planning decisions and forces major projects through the planning process.
• Oppose the use of Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs) to finance road construction.
• Abolish road tolls.
• Increase public funding for road upgrading and maintenance.
• Concentrate expenditure on increasing cycle lanes provision.
• Adopt a biofuel policy including tax incentives for the production of ethanol and provide incentives for car buyers to choose more environmentally friendly and efficient cars such as hybrid cars.
Improving Air Networks and Sea Ports on an All-Ireland Basis
• Initiate an all-Ireland strategic review of the air industry, including carriers and airports.
• Initiate an all-Ireland strategic review of the sea ports.
• Use Public Service Obligations to ensure the delivery of air services in the west and north-west and on an all-Ireland basis.
• Reverse the break-up of Aer Rianta, and return Air Lingus and Irish Ferries to public ownership or establish new companies in public ownership.
Universal Broadband and an All-Ireland Phone Network
• Invest to bring the Irish broadband network up to a satisfactory level and bridge the existing gap.
• Bring Eircom back into public ownership or establish a new company in public ownership.
• Set a target by which all telephone lines must be ADSL-enabled.
• Introduce all-Ireland co-operation to integrate telecommunications systems on the island, thereby improving the service and reduce costs particularly for those in the border region.
• Provide universal access to broadband on an all-Ireland basis.
• Establish an all-Ireland mobile phone network, with reasonable all-Ireland tariffs.
Saving, Developing and Diversifying An Post
• End the closure of Post Offices throughout the country.
• Reject privatisation of An Post and ensure it remains as a state asset under public control.
• Support the further diversification of the rural post office network into other areas of service provision.
Enhancing All-Ireland Energy Networks, Controlling Prices, Developing Renewables
• Develop an All-Ireland Energy Strategy to expand all-Ireland networks, accelerate development of the renewable energy sector with progressive targets towards energy independence, and bring domestic energy prices down.
• Ensure that an all-Ireland energy market benefits all through the provision of affordable sustainable energy and security of supply.
• Put an end to the artificial inflation of ESB prices, which results from the energy regulator's liberalisation remit and puts an undue burden on small businesses in particular.
Supporting Enterprise and Job Creation
Sinn Féin believes that indigenous business development is crucial for a sustainable economy. Under current Government policy the enterprise environment has actually deteriorated. Businesses large and small are now feeling the pinch from the combined impact of poor infrastructure and gridlock and spiralling energy, insurance, water and waste management prices. Smaller businesses get second class treatment. Only now, in the run-up to the General Election, is the Government finally beginning to take measures to promote R&D.
Sinn Féin is committed to supporting enterprise and job creation and to balanced regional development.
The Sinn Féin Platform for Irish Entrepreneurship
Sinn Féin proposes a package of measures aimed specifically at supporting and developing indigenous enterprise. We would continue to encourage more Foreign Direct Investment but give the same type of supports to small and medium businesses. We would also support agriculture which provides 20% of all jobs outside of the public sector.
We also believe that publicly-owned companies make an important contribution to the Irish economy and business environment - particularly where these are established in strategic sectors - and moreover that these can be run both efficiently and profitably. We do not propose to continue the downsizing of the public sector in the 26 Counties, but rather to retain profitable and especially strategic sector companies in public ownership and to develop new companies where there is scope for this.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team consistently opposed the privatisation of essential public utilities that are vital to a healthy business environment.
• We consistently pressed for an increased focus on supporting indigenous industry and promoting R&D amongst Irish companies.
• We pushed for meaningful intervention where jobs were lost as multinational companies moved their operations to lower cost economies. We demanded improved redundancy protections for workers and that the Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment carry out an assessment of the relevance of training courses provided by FÁS in meeting the needs of business and those seeking employment.
• We called attention to Government failures to focus business development supports on areas such as County Donegal that have experienced significant job losses and have above average levels of unemployment.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
Support for Private Enterprise
• Support the development of indigenous micro and small and medium enterprises (SME) and social economy enterprises.
• Establish an All-Ireland Small Business Task Force to develop an island-wide strategy for the indigenous SME sector.
• Improve support for start-up businesses including provision of increased business advice, guidance and training plus dedicated management development.
• Adopt an All-Ireland R&D Strategy co-ordinated through the enterprise development agencies, central and local government, business, trade unions and educational institutions - including a programme of extra assistance to SMEs and new businesses to develop business plans for R&D.
• Adopt an All-Ireland Clustering Strategy that both targets the new emerging technologies and strengthens the potential in existing economic sectors such as financial services, agriculture and food processing. Make extra funding and supports available to develop clusters in the more underdeveloped and disadvantaged areas such as the Border Midlands West region.
• Initiate a targeted and funded strategy to pre-emptively up-skill workers vulnerable to future jobs-losses following an assessment of sectors and geographic regions likely to experience job losses in the next five years.
• Provide specific recycling depots for small business to enable them to reduce their waste management costs.
• Initiate a specific Redundancy to Entrepreneurship scheme to assist workers who have become redundant to establish their own businesses.
Support for Public Enterprise
• Establish a State oil, gas and mineral exploration company.
• Establish a publicly-owned company to develop Irish renewable energy resources for the benefit of the nation.
• Actively pursue the return of Eircom, Aer Lingus and Irish Ferries to public ownership or establish new State companies in these sectors.
• Oppose the privatisation of the ESB and other public sector companies.
• Explore and pursue possibilities for establishing new profitable companies in public ownership, particularly in strategic sectors.
Developing Social Economy and Cooperative Enterprise
• Adopt a co-ordinated and comprehensive Social Economy Strategy on an all- Ireland and cross-departmental basis.
• Establish an appropriately-funded, all-Ireland Social Economy Development Agency (including a dedicated Co-operative Development Unit) to develop the sector strategically.
• Ensure increased investment in community-owned enterprise units and infrastructure by the enterprise development agencies.
• Provide specific government support for social economy community-run projects in the renewable energy, housing and agricultural sectors.
Promoting Workers' Rights
Sinn Féin believes that workers' rights are basic requirements of a healthy economy and a just society. We aim to end exploitation and unsafe working conditions and to ensure that everyone can have rewarding employment, a fair income and a good quality family life.
Government policy has steadily eroded workers' rights over the last decade. Employers displace well-paid workers for lower-paid labour because they can do so in the absence of strict regulation and stringent enforcement. Evidence of exploitation involving abuse of migrant workers is mounting across the State.
Yet weak regulation and poor enforcement have resulted in low rates of inspection and prosecution for violations. The rate of working households in poverty has doubled over the last decade as a result of low-paid employment. Non-enforcement, insufficient penalties and deficiencies in law all contribute to high-levels of work-related illness, injuries and fatalities. In 2005, 73 people lost their lives in work-related accidents.
Sinn Féin has established a new Trade Union Department and published a detailed plan to bring workers' rights back to the centre of economic and social policy.
The Sinn Féin Workers' Rights Platform
Sinn Féin's priority is to better the lot of all workers in Ireland. We advocate employment based on equality with fair conditions and a secure living wage, in a work environment that is safe, healthy and free from harassment and discrimination. Rogue employers who operate dangerous workplaces or unsafe work practices or who exploit workers and violate labour law in Ireland must be made subject to stringent penalties. Employers must be made to recognise trade unions and trade unions' right to organise recognised in law.
Sinn Féin recognises that Irish workers and trade unions have legitimate concerns regarding 'displacement' by lower-paid workers, including migrant workers. 'Displacement' is not so much the exchange of Irish workers for non-Irish workers but the exchange of organised workers with good pay, conditions and benefits for unorganised workers who are ripe for exploitation. The solution to displacement therefore lies in regulating employment standards (including pay and working conditions) for all workers, and their effective enforcement to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable workers for profit.
Sinn Féin also proposes enactment of a new generation of employment equality legislation. Particularly as we move towards an all-Ireland labour market, we propose an upward-harmonisation of employment equality law - as well as all other workers' rights - on an all-Ireland basis. We plan to enshrine workers' rights in the 1937 Constitution in a future All-Ireland Charter of Rights and in a United Irish Constitution. These will include the right of workers organise, to join trade unions, to negotiate contracts of employment, and to strike. Sinn Féin would establish a Department and Minister of Labour.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team published the Corporate Manslaughter Bill 2007 to make employers accountable for the death of an employee in the workplace as a result of negligence.
• We regularly called attention to cases of migrant worker exploitation, and proposed amendments to the Employment Permits Bill to enshrine equal rights for migrant workers, to change the law so that all employment permits would be issued directly to the worker and to extend family reunification and employment rights.
• We used the Private Members Time in the Dáil to initiate a debate calling for the establishment of a stand alone Department of Labour Affairs.
• In the Dáil Sinn Féin has consistently demanded government action on workplace fatalities, injuries and illnesses.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
Promoting Trade Union Rights and Establishing a Department of Labour
• Hold a referendum to enshrine in the 1937 Constitution the right of workers to form, join and be represented by trade unions, to negotiate contracts of employment, and to engage in industrial action and trade union activities. This will have the effect of making trade union recognition mandatory.
• Harmonise labour law upwards on an all-Ireland basis.
• Establish a Department of Labour with a full Minister and a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Labour Affairs.
Ending Exploitation
• Establish a toll-free 24 hour Workers' Rights Helpline.
• Determine the optimum number of labour inspectors, as well as the legal and other professional supports required and immediately implement any necessary increase.
• Introduce a penalty points system against rogue employers who consistently violate labour law, with a range of penalties including a bar from eligibility for public contracts and removal from the companies register.
• Review, strengthen and introduce where necessary new Employment Regulation Orders covering service sector employment.
• Increase regulation of the apprenticeship system and extend minimum wage legislation to cover apprentices.
• Increase regulation and introduce licensing of employment agencies.
• Increase regulation of contractors and subcontractors to end exploitation through coerced bogus self-employment.
• Adopt public purchasing and investment policies to bar companies engaged in exploitation of workers or anti-trade union activities from receiving Government contracts.
• Introduce public disclosure ('whistleblowers') protection legislation.
Combating Displacement by Promoting Equal Rights for Migrant Workers
• Legislate to establish rights and entitlements for migrant workers equivalent to those of host society workers.
• Amend the law to provide that in all cases employment permits are issued directly to migrant workers and not their employers, and to extend migrant workers' rights to family reunification and employment.
Combating Low Pay
• Immediately increase the minimum wage to 60% of the average industrial wage and abolish age and experience differentials.
• Provide for stringent enforcement of minimum wage legislation and increase penalties for non-compliance.
• Establish a Low Pay Commission responsible for developing a time-framed National Strategy for the Reduction of Wage Differentials between low paid and high-paid workers.
• Initiate a review of workers' pay and conditions with a remit to recommend remedies for deficiencies identified.
Sick Pay, Overtime Pay and Better Protection from Redundancy
• Introduce a Statutory Sick Pay Scheme.
• Introduce a statutory entitlement to overtime pay.
• Legislate to introduce redundancy protection from the first day of employment with no minimum qualifying hours per week, and increase redundancy payments to a minimum of four weeks of pay per year of service.
Pension Justice
• Investigate the introduction of a basic non-means tested pension supplementing second tier (PRSI/Carers' Credit-related) pensions.
Enforcing and Improving Workplace Health and Safety
• Immediately introduce a package of robust prevention and enforcement initiatives to tackle work-related illness, injuries and fatalities including increased prosecutions and penalties for violations of health and safety law and standards.
• Introduce a package of programmes to tackle other work-related hazards such as toxic stress and bullying as well as truly effective workplace drug and alcohol policies.
• Increase the number of health and safety inspectors to a level that enables the Health and Safety Authority to effectively fulfil all its responsibilities under existing worker health and safety legislation.
• Introduce a penalty point system to deal with companies and employers that consistently transgress health and safety law, with a range of penalties including removal from the companies register and a bar from eligibility for public contracts.
• Immediately enact corporate manslaughter legislation.
• Develop a ten-year All-Ireland Health and Safety at Work Strategy.
Promoting Work-Life Balance
• Introduce a statutory right to request flexible working arrangements that requires all employers to 'seriously consider' this and only permits refusal where there is a compelling business case.
Promoting Employment Equality
• Amend employment equality legislation to prohibit discrimination on all the following grounds: race, ethnic origin (including membership of the Travelling community), nationality, colour, gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, disability, age, social or economic status, marital or family status, residence, language, religious belief, criminal conviction (save where the offence would be objectively incompatible with job responsibilities), political or other opinion or membership of a trade union.
• Introduce legal sanctions on those who promote or incite discrimination or who directly participate in sectarian, racist, homophobic, or sexual harassment or other victimisation on any of the prohibited grounds.
• Legislate to prohibit employment discrimination against former political prisoners.
• Develop a specific state-wide strategy to tackle high rates of unemployment among disabled workers with effective supports for the public and private sector to recruit people with disabilities.
• Introduce subsidy and tax relief measures on the cost of workplace adaptations to accommodate workers with disabilities.
Sinn Féin believes that we need an economy that is not only strong but also equal. The world's most equal economies are also among the most stable and prosperous. That is what we want for our country.
The 26 Counties may have become one of the world's richest state but it is also one of the most unequal. The policies of successive Irish Governments have created an economy in which the wealthiest 20% now earns more than ten times the income of the poorest 20%.
Inequality is not good for the economy - it is wasteful and costly. It is not equality but poverty that drains public resources. It is far better for all of us when everybody can make their full contribution to our economy and society. When everyone is working and earning a decent income, they are also spending, supporting businesses and paying their fair share of tax to ensure that the Government can provide all the services, social supports and other infrastructure needed to grow and spread prosperity.
All parties claim to oppose poverty and support equality. Only Sinn Féin has brought the Equality Agenda to the centre of all our economic and social policy.
The Sinn Féin Platform for an Equal Economy
Equality is at the heart of Sinn Féin's agenda for government. We believe in the right to universal access to excellent healthcare, education and childcare. We believe in the constitutional right to a home. We believe in building the economy and using the wealth created for the public good. We believe that people should pay according to their ability to pay and that everyone should have equal access to the highest quality public services, infrastructure and social protections.
For ten years there has been unprecedented revenue available to the Irish Government. They have had the ability and the resources to deal effectively with poverty and inequality. They have had the resources to deliver an end to the crisis in the health service, to build social and affordable housing, to provide a decent education system and to introduce comprehensive childcare. They have chosen not to. Sinn Féin would make different choices.
Sinn Féin believes that public finances should be used to share the wealth by ensuring the highest possible quality of infrastructure and public services are available equally to all as of right. We undertake to guarantee that everyone's basic needs and rights to food and warmth, housing, health, education and childcare are met and that all have the benefit of a comprehensive regime of social protections. We are committed to eliminate poverty through the progressive achievement of the equitable distribution of the wealth of Ireland amongst the people of Ireland.
These objectives require taxation justice, a new emphasis on the generation of significant non-tax revenue, and public spending policies that are sustainable, transparent and accountable and that eliminate waste. They will also require the removal of many of the current constraints on our economic sovereignty imposed by the EU.
Eliminating Poverty
Sinn Féin believes that poverty must be eradicated. Our society is now in a better position than ever before to achieve this.
Yet the current Irish Government has failed to use our economic success to benefit everyone. It has failed to share the abundant wealth with those most vulnerable such as the unemployed, large families, lone parent families, those in low-income jobs, older people, and people with disabilities. As a consequence of bad policy choices and wrong priorities, nearly one in five people are still at risk of poverty and struggle to make ends meet. Almost 275,000 people are still poor enough that they lack some of the necessities of life including adequate food, shelter, warmth and clothing. We have one of the highest rates of child poverty in the EU and OECD. Over 60,000 people cannot afford to adequately heat their homes.
All parties pay lip service to eliminating poverty. Only Sinn Féin brings this commitment into the heart of our economic policy and elevates it as our principal economic objective. Elimination of poverty is a national aspiration shared by virtually every Irish person and we are committed to do what is necessary to achieve this goal.
The Sinn Féin Anti-Poverty Platform
We believe there is a positive obligation on government to eliminate poverty by providing a comprehensive system of social supports to ensure that everyone has a decent quality of life, does not lack for essentials, and can access appropriate education and employment. Social welfare reforms should not be used to force people into low paid employment, creating a larger substratum of 'working poor'.
We propose to take all necessary steps to genuinely ease the transition from welfare to work through education and employment measures, accessible and affordable childcare, and appropriate and adequate income supports. We propose a package of measures to raise household incomes, enhance specific supports for low-income families, eradicate food and fuel poverty, bring early school leavers back into education, increase support for unpaid care work and tackle disability-related poverty.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team was to the fore in highlighting the fact that poverty has left a significant proportion of the population marginalised and excluded. We called the Government to account for it inaction on the National Anti-Poverty Strategy commitments and on child poverty.
• We repeatedly raised with the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the fact that social welfare payments and pensions are not adequate to keep people out of poverty.
• We opposed cuts in Community Employment (CE) and J1 schemes.
• Every year at Budget time we pressed for additional assistance for lone parents who experience disproportionate levels of poverty.
• We were foremost in pressing for an increase in Child Dependent Allowance when the government maintained a freeze on it.
• We continuously raised the issue of fuel poverty, including specifically pushing for additional measures to address the impact of fuel price increases.
• Since 2004 our Pre-Budget Submissions Putting Children First and Putting Low Income Families First included proposals aimed at ending poverty for those in employment and increasing social protections of those out of work or working in the home. We also put forward specific proposals for helping the less well off cope with rising costs.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
Raising Household Incomes
• Increase the minimum wage to 60% of average industrial earnings, index-linked to inflation. Eliminate the discriminatory lower rate of pay for young people.
• Set a new longer term benchmark against which the evolution of social welfare rtes can be measured. Sinn Féin is proposing that a new short term target of 35% of gross average industrial earnings be set.
• Double the Living Alone Allowance.
• Increase the Family Income Supplement by €68 per week and make it an automatic payment. Ensure all those eligible take it up, reduce the qualifying working hours and make it more flexible to recognise seasonal work.
• Extend eligibility for the Back to Work Allowance to include those who are unemployed for more than 12 months.
• Extend the new Early Childcare Supplement to include children aged 6 to12.
Enhancing Specific Supports for Lone Parents
• Ensure lone parents can keep their rent supplement for at least 3 years of full-time work and continually if they are in part-time employment.
• Introduce adequate supports to ensure that lone parents in work can access well-paid and meaningful employment, including a comprehensive revamp of schemes for bringing lone parents back into the formal education system as a crucial element of incentives to return to work.
• Ensure that proposed reforms replacing the One Parent Family Payment with a Parental Allowance are accompanied by adequate education/training and childcare supports
• Remove the cut-off point for the new Parental Allowance (proposed when children reach the age of 7).
Eradicating Food and Fuel Poverty
• Increase the weekly fuel allowance payment to €25, or the equivalent in an allowance for units of electricity and heating fuel, for those on social welfare payments and families eligible for FIS, and extend the fuel allowance from the beginning of September to the end of April - for 34 weeks instead of the current 29 weeks.
Bringing Early School Leavers Back Into Education
• Make the Back to Education Allowance available to all those on low incomes after six months unemployment.
Increasing Support for Unpaid Care Work
• Abolish the means test for carers, substantially increase the Carer's Allowance, respite care and support services and provide for needs assessment and training of carers.
• Increase the Orphan Guardian Payment to the level of the Foster Care Allowance. Change the criteria to ensure that grandparents or other family members do not have to agree that the child in question was 'abandoned' in order to receive payments to help look after the children of their drug-addicted sons and daughters and bring supports into line with provision for foster parents.
Tackling Disability-Related Poverty
• Introduce a Cost of Disability Payment on a phased basis, to offset extra costs related to disability and in recognition of disproportionate rates of poverty and unemployment among people with disabilities.
Sharing the Wealth by Financing Better Services, Infrastructure and Social Protections
The most important reason for a Government to raise revenue is for the purpose of financing world class public services and infrastructure and social protections from which all benefit or potentially benefit. Sinn Féin believes that this revenue should be raised fairly: those who have more should pay more, and those who have less should pay less. No tax should be unfair or onerous. No one should have to pay twice as a consequence of service charges and user fees for what should be public services already paid for through taxation. The Government should also seek to raise revenue through methods other than taxation or selling off public assets in order to reduce the burden on taxpayers to the greatest possible extent.
The current system for raising public finance is unjust and needs to change. Successive Government policy has created a situation whereby some of the wealthiest people on this island pay no income tax at all - while people on middle incomes are not only paying tax at a rate of 41%, they also pay disproportionately more of their income on tax through consumption tax (VAT) as well as on the indirect or double taxes of service charges and user fees. Almost one third of the overall tax take is raised through consumption tax. When taken together with excise duties, it amounts to nearly half of all tax receipts.
The coalition government redistributed wealth in favour of the already-wealthy. They have allowed the super-rich to skim off the rest of us. They have also sold off public assets and profitable public companies and contracted public services out privately. This policy has not only deprived the State of important sources of non-tax revenue, it has also subjected people to double taxation.
All parties claim to be in favour of fair taxation but none has made it happen. Only Sinn Féin has the will to tackle the super rich - the exploiters who make super profits by the clever use of tax loopholes - and to maximise public ownership of profitable companies. Sinn Féin is committed to public finance reform and taxation justice, to enhancing non-tax sources of public revenue, and to spending the public wealth responsibly - on the delivery of services, infrastructure and social protections for the benefit of all.
The Sinn Féin Platform for Taxation Justice
Our basic principle is that people should pay according to their ability to pay. We believe that tax policy should be about reducing the burden on low and middle-income people as much as possible. It should be about encouraging local small businesses and the social economy. It should be about ensuring there is sufficient revenue to deliver strong public services, infrastructure and social protections. That is what we would work to see delivered in government.
It is not fair that the lower-paid should subsidise the wealthy, as is currently the case. Everybody should pay their fair share - and no more than that.
The tax system needs to be overhauled to bring about a fair and equal system where everybody pays their fair share. Our first order of business for tax policy will be eliminating and closing all the loopholes and reducing the burden on the lowest-paid. We are also committed to reclaim and protect Irish sovereignty over taxation from encroachment by the EU and to harmonise the tax system on an all-Ireland basis.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team was to the fore in highlighting the injustices at the heart of the present tax regime. Each year we made a Pre-Budget Submission to the Minister for Finance setting out what we believe should be Government priorities.
• We demanded the lowering of the burden on low and middle income earners by reducing and removing regressive features that penalise them, including ending indirect taxes such as refuse charges that constitute double taxation.
• We were foremost in demanding the abolition of damaging, costly and unjust tax giveaways to speculators and developers.
• We strongly opposed Government use of tax breaks to promote the private healthcare business.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
Reducing the Tax Burden on the Lowest Paid
• Keep those on or below the minimum wage out of the tax net, and set the minimum wage at a minimum of 60% of average industrial earnings.
• Keep those on or below the average industrial earnings within the standard rate tax band.
• Oppose the introduction of user fees and service charges for essential public services and review the existing charges that apply to public services to plan for their reduction and removal.
• Conduct a comprehensive review of the VAT system in order to identify the best ways to reduce the consumption tax burden on the lowest paid within present EU constraints,. Campaign at EU level for repeal of the EU VAT Directive to restore Member State sovereignty on VAT, and determine the most appropriate way to achieve VAT harmonisation on an all-Ireland basis.
Ensuring the Wealthiest Pay their Fair Share
• Aggressively pursue tax evasion and invest adequate resources for tax collection and enforcement.
• Close all remaining legal loopholes that have allowed millionaires to pay no tax whatsoever.
• Introduce legislation to end tax exile status - the ability of high income individuals to declare themselves 'non-resident for tax purposes'.
• Review all current tax exemptions and retain only those where the economic and social value clearly outweighs the cost of the exemption to the Exchequer (for example in the case of R&D).
• Increase restrictions on the use of specified tax reliefs by high-income individuals, for example by introducing a ceiling on exempt income.
Fundamental Tax Reform
• Conduct an early, comprehensive review of the tax system to be completed within one year, in order to ensure a just and equitable system where everyone pays their fair share of tax but no more than that.
• Work for the restoration of economic sovereignty and for EU Member States to retain complete control over taxation policy and strategy, and in particular work for the restoration of Member State competence in relation to VAT through repeal of the EU VAT Directive.
• Negotiate for tax harmonisation across the island.
A New Emphasis on Non-Tax Revenue
We aim to keep public service provision high and taxes as low as possible. This means that finding other non-tax sources of public revenue must become a priority. Sinn Féin would therefore put a unique new policy emphasis on maximising non-tax sources of revenue.
Current Government policy is not concerned with this. In 2005 only approximately 1.5% of overall Government revenue came from non-tax sources. There is ample but as yet underdeveloped potential to realise significant revenue from profitable public companies, particularly in strategic sectors such as transport, communications and energy. For example, in 2005 the Exchequer received in excess of €5 million in royalties from Marathon Petroleum, in excess of €10 million from Bord Gáis Éireann, approximately €73.5 million in dividends from the ESB and it is estimated that the Corrib field may contain reserves valued at up to €21 billion.
The experience of Norway where the mineral exploration sector has become one of the engines of economic growth proves the benefits of state involvement in the natural resources sector in particular. Earnings from oil and gas contribute almost one third of state revenue in Norway. In contrast, the Irish Government has actually surrendered our entire stake in any finds, reduced tax levels, abolished royalties and granted long-term frontier licences. All this has been done at a great financial loss to the people of Ireland and the Exchequer.
The Sinn Féin Platform to Enhance Non-Tax Revenue
We would reverse the irresponsible policies of natural resource giveaway and official neglect of opportunities to raise non-tax revenue by investing in profitable public companies.
Moreover, we would invest strategically in the accelerated development of the renewable energy sector, as this is the way of the future: moving us towards environmental sustainability, energy independence and enhanced non-tax sources of public revenue.
We recognise that current EU rules impose some constraints on our objectives. We would therefore work with allies in Europe for the necessary reforms at EU level to remove these impediments, and we would also pursue specific exemptions similar to those achieved by Germany to allow Ireland to use State aid to finance reunification.
The Sinn Féin Record in Leinster House:
• Our Dáil Team published a motion advocating the creation of a public company to oversee mineral explorations and the imposition of proper tax and royalties. We raised these demands with the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources on numerous occasions.
• We made a comprehensive submission to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport opposing the proposed privatisation of Aer Lingus, wrote to the EU Commissioner urging an investigation of the attempted takeover of Aer Lingus by Ryanair, repeatedly raised the airline privatisation issue with the Minister for Transport, and moved a Dáil motion opposing the proposed sale of Aer Lingus, prompting a debate in the House. Throughout this campaign we were in regular contact with SIPTU union leaders and raised airline employee concerns regularly in the Dáil.
Sinn Féin Priorities in Government:
Reclaiming our National Resources
• Reform the current exploration licensing and taxation regime and renegotiate oil and gas contracts.
• Establish a State oil, gas and mineral exploration company that would actively participate and invest in exploration which, alongside a proper revenue and royalties structure, would ensure that such finds benefit the Irish people by providing additional revenue for the Exchequer.
Realising the Potential Revenue from Renewable Energy
• Plan for strategic public investment in developing the renewable energy sector including the establishment of a profitable company or companies in public ownership.
• Set a target for becoming a net exporter of electricity from renewable sources.
Maintaining Profitable Companies in Public Ownership
• Keep the ESB and all other profitable public companies in public ownership.
• Actively pursue returning Eircom and Aer Lingus to public ownership.
• Explore and pursue the possibilities for the establishment of new public sector companies.
• Negotiate at EU level for an exception to the EU State Aid Rules similar to that conceded to Germany, to assist post-partition reconstruction for reunification.
Responsible Spending of Public Wealth in the Public Interest
The big question for many people is whether the vast amount of revenues, generated from both the EU and taxation, are being put to the most efficient use. The answer to that question is No. Official incompetence and corruption have resulted in waste of public resources and failure to meet budget and completion targets. We all know about the faulty electronic voting machines, the PPARS health computer system which does not work, the overruns in the Port Tunnel and other major road and infrastructure projects. There has been some improvement in relation to spending on major road projects in recent months but the overall problem remains. The era of government squandering public finances has to end.
All parties claim a monopoly on fiscal responsibility, but what we need are credible proposals to deal with the problem. Sinn Féin is determined to change the bad planning and procurement policies, the poor decision making and established practices - and to challenge the vested interests, privati