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SINN FÉIN HAS proposed abolishing the local property tax which would cost the Exchequer €445 million, in its alternative Budget plans.
Against this, the party has proposed re-introducing a second home charge at a rate of €400 per-year which would raise €105 million.
Among other measures, the party has also proposed raising betting tax applied to customers to 3% which would raise €3 million, and a 7% special levy on incomes over €100,000 (which would raise €662 million).
The third largest party in the Dáil launched its alternative budget today, which party TDs said was on the side of “ordinary people”.
“In Budget 2018, Sinn Féin has chosen a side, the side of ordinary people,” said finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty.
Sinn Féin’s priority for Budget 2018 is to invest in public services and begin the process of solving the crises in health and housing.
Breakdown
Sinn Féin’s Budget would see increases in taxes across different levels of the economy.
Under the heading of “Paying a Fair Share”, the party proposes the 7% levy, increasing the Capital Acquisitions Tax by 3% to 6%, abolishing the Help to Buy scheme, and increasing PRSI for incomes of over €100,000.
All in all the party will raise €2 billion from tax methods. Offsetting this will be tax reductions of almost €600 million.
Some of these will include abolishing the property tax, taking workers under €20,280 out of the Universal Social Charge, increasing tax credits for the self-employed and increasing PRSI bands in line with a minimum wage increase.
Taking these into account, the party is proposing net tax increases of around €1.4 billion.
Doherty has stressed that in the current economic climate there is no room for significant tax cuts and that all resources must be directed towards addressing the crises in housing and health.
He said that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were engaged in “a sham fight over tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit those on higher incomes over those on lower to average incomes”.
Spending
The party has costed proposals which it said will tackle the main social issues in the country.
Among these are increases in capital investment in the housing sector, with additional social housing of 4,131 units costed at €702 million.
There would also be increased spending on a new affordable housing programme of €428 million.
There would also be increased capital investment in health of €100 million. The party said it would tackle the trolley crisis and caring for older people with 500 more hospital beds and two million additional home help hours.
The party also flagged increases of €4.50 for all working age social welfare payments, €4.50 for pensioners and €6 for people with disabilities.
You can view the full alternative Budget here
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I heard the interview with Ms Fitzgerald – my God what a disgrace!
Minister Varadkar must inform HSE employees that they are public servants and must be accountable to the public.
Coming on to a public broadcaster and refusing to answer simple questions, like how much did the HSE request from to address ED overcrowding is simply not acceptable.
Where is Minister Varadkar by the way?
No confidence, No mandate, call an election now.
I heard the interview too, it was disgraceful how she refused to answer. I also heard one man say that top and middle management staff have increased but no increases in front line staff where under staffing is at crisis point. Nothing has changed, too many chief and not enough Indians!! This country is run by a government who has no idea what they are doing. Their only interest is self interest. Too busy lining their own pockets.
Somebody should unleash Vincent Browne on her.
Exactly that is the problem, it comes back to the cronyism that is rife in ireland for decades. All these public services are underfunded at the frontline but bloated beyond belief at administrative levels. Leo would be front and centre crowing about good news but like enda ,you wont hear a peep when it comes to some accountability. They were able to pump a billion into setting up IW so as to extract more money from the tax payer but they are unwilling to spend money on saving lives. This is unacceptable in this day and age.
It’s not rocket science, these situations are clearly unsafe. Having corridors meant to be kept clear blocked by trolleys to such a degree that emergency admissions can’t get into the hospitals is an unsafe situation. Having all Trauma bays in use with critically ill patients is a serious situation for any hospital and means they can no longer accept critically ill patients, it’s unsafe. By HSE rules they MUST close the department as any patient admitted who becomes critical has no Trauma bed available, all Trauma beds have life support equipment. Not doing this when they are supposed to is obviously unsafe. Moving one critically ill patient from a Trauma bed to treat another is unsafe, but it happens, staff have no choice. Having trolleys head to toe in a department, crammed in like sardines is unsafe. Abusing staff and patients is unsafe, but we seem to find it acceptable. Why?
The government allows the health service to crumble but ensures the neo liberal vandals of the IMF got their €9 billion pound of flesh last month.
http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2014/1128/663203-noonan-imf-loans/
This is the price we pay as a society when the vast speculative debts of the financial elite are passed on to the people via health service cutbacks , USC , water charges, home taxes, education and social support cutbacks, an extra 3 years added to our working lives and a thousand other attacks on our living standards.
The government is responsible for this. Willing to pay our German masters billions and starvibg our hospitals of cash.Kenny,Burton and co should be arrested for destroying the country!
Imagine having to go to work to face that sh!te. And to work for the government worse still.
Why can’t they just tell people the truth. Tell people NOT to go to A&E with minor problems that can be dealt with by a GP. Also doctor on call need to stop referring people to hospital without seeing or assessing them over the phone.
Question dodging of that caliber will earn her promotion
Doctors don’t hesitate to refer people to casualty. Maybe it’s ass-covering?
Talk about skirting around the question. That is a serious issue in this country never a frickin straight answer to a national problem. It’s obvious all our hospitals are not safe and she should have said that. People need to take responsibility .
Why can’t she just admit it’s not safe??
Who the fk thinks it is? By joking around in political-speak she comes across as YET ANOTHER witless, incompetent puppet.
After that showpiece, who could possibly think Angela Fitzgerald is any part of the solution? Complete moron!
Does anyone have the details that were being discussed on Newstalk this morning where someone’s assessment revealed that 4,000 people that could have been saved, died awaiting emergency care? Whats the time period, how was it measured and who measured it?
Fair play to the nurses. Somebody’s got to stand up for the sick & vulnerable.
Miserably underpaid & treated like dirt, but still shows us there’s a few decent people left.
I heard an interview y’day with the head of Emergency in Sligo. He said that international studies have shown that longterm stay on trolleys in A&E can lead to death. Based on Irish numbers, he felt that somewhere in the region of 350 deaths occur annually in Ireland for this reason.
Are our streets safe?
Are our workplaces safe?
Are our schools safe?
Are our homes safe?
Are our prisons safe?
Are our hospitals safe?
All of the above are vague, meaningless questions that don’t really deserve a straight answer.
Safety is obviously an ongoing concern with all of them, but it would be impossible for one person to stand up and declare something to be ‘safe’ in the black-and-white manner that this interviewer would seem to suggest is possible.
There’s a huge organisation called HIQA who set standards of safety – whether it’s a nurs
…whether it’s a nursing home, a county hospital or indeed an A&E.
13 poor souls who spent the night on corridor trolleys OUTSIDE the Limerick A&E (never mind the dozens on trolleys inside) does not strike me as safe.
Denito – troll, enD of..
Wally would be more like it.
Watched the interview on morning Ireland on rte news now . She refused to answer also how much the hse asked for to tackle the overcrowding. Leo was unavailable. Considering he loves the media. They have had years to sort this problem. They fact she wouldn’t say there safe tells its own story. Scandal after scandal with the hse. Shameful.
Funny that Mr ‘Ive a point on everything but my actual own Dept’ Varadkar isnt being too noisy right now is he?
Bear this in mind D15 come election time…………
Varadkar, stop hiding and lets here what you have got to say, after all its usually impossible to shut you up you useless muppet!
She spouts the usual political guff that helps no one. But she’s in a very well paid position no doubt.
It just about sums up our healthcare system , waffle , blsht , but no answers or action .
The HSE when exposed in public is what Irish Water will be in the future and what the whole Public Service would be if they were allowed to be questioned.
Successive government politicians have failed to tackle this secret society with its cosy working arrangements.
Nothing will change.
The lady in question should no longer be employed in any capacity by the State. You knew it was going to end badly when she wouldn’t even answer a question concerning extra funding they applied for.
Shades of Jeremy Paxman interviewing Michael Howard.
Typical management speak. Say plenty, repeat yourself over and over again yet answer nothing and agree to nothing. She should be hauled before a public enquiry and asked questions and lambasted every time she waffles and refuses to answer questions.
Perhaps the journalists should be attempting to clarify how many closed beds on wards have they actually opened up in an attempt to address this crisis?
As if further proof was needed that the HSE is not fit for purpose and why the health system is in disarray. Plenty of funding but wasting it on pseudo politicians like her.
Ms. Fitzgerald should have answered that question. We can only presume her answer would have been ‘No, they are not safe’. An answer like this may have actually spurred the Minister and the bureaucrats into actually addressing this. An answer such as ‘No, our hospitals arent safe’ would have made worldwide headlines and may have spurred the relevant people into action.
Anyone who has ever had any relative in an Emergency department of a hospital in this country knows what a disgrace it actually is. The loss of dignity is hard to bear.
For Michael Noonan to yesterday blame FF for this mess is in itself a disgrace. 4 years on and he is still using that excuse instead of actually tackling the problem.
I’m not sure why Leo Varadkar has been made Minister for Health as since that appointment I have only heard him spouting on about Irish Water, which should be none of his business.
i get the impression every Minister, once they accept this poisoned chalice job, realise they don’t have a clue what to do and so decide to avoid their job as much as possible. That’s the impression they give anyway.
unfortunately we will be speaking about this again in 5 years time because no politician has the ba**s to tackle this problem and all the overspending bureaucracy that goes along with it
If things in the health service are not up to standard,the buck ultimately stops with the Minister for Health.
I can’t blame him for all this mess.
Reilly was such an unmitigated disaster, with corruption and stroke politics, completely unable to work with ANY group – even with his own party!
Leo is in this cesspool against his will. Enda saw a potential competitor and wants him buried alive.
You’re right Michael, the health system has been filled with incompetence for many years, but if Leo is serious about fixing the health system , he’d better start doing something major, and fast.
Slash and burn time needed in the dept of health, but the unions will never let that happen
Slash and burn time but unions won’t let it happen. Did the unions close wards. Close a&e. Downgrade services. No that was the government so if there is going to slash and burn include the government because they helped with this crisis .
The biggest expense in the health budget is salaries, the is no way the unions will support a cut in wages or numbers, so you get a worse service every year.
slash wages are you for real
A nurse working 4 year doing night and weekends will take home between 350 and 400 euro a week
No wonder they are all in the uk or OZ as you be better of stacking shelves
@littleone – YES, indirectly the unions closed all of the above by being too rigid, archaic and bureaucratic. They are also partly responsible for turning the HSE into the defunct shambles it has become.
The entire system needs to be ripped apart and structured in a fashion that will allow things to change easier and reflect the needs of the day.
Health also needs a full time minister with a set of balls to tackle this, unfortunately the current minister is only interested in photo opportunities.
@Galway2007 – You are right, nurses and front line staff need to be paid more, it’s all the bureaucrats it the background that need to be slashed and their salaries brought into line.
CitizenSmith, who’s wages,or what people exactly? Those working at the frontline services like nurses? Or the managers, executives, or consultants?
I needed emergency treatment some years ago and got it thank God . If it were to happen now I am not so sure . There is no confidence in the health system it will take some terrible disaster to happen in one of our no bed under staffed hospitals to bring this Government to heel and pull out All the stops to solve this crisis once and for all.
think as her job as director of hse acute hospitals she should know and if she does not . Why not.?.
How could anyone argue for the setting up of Irish Water when we have the HSE acting like this? The idea of having two of these quangos handling crucial services is frightening. Control-Alt-Delete this FG/Lab Regime.
Reminds me of that scene in Marathon Man…”Is it safe?” Perhaps if he’d had a dentists drill handy, he would have gotten a straight answer.
Recovery, highest growth in the EU….typical properganda. Growth and recovery means that people can afford a roof over their heads and have affordable healthcare.
Leo ,,where are you ?
Wherever he is he is not doing his job otherwise he would be all over the media.
It is pretty much certain that she is paid a lot more than front line nursing staff and has had a good deal of medja training in how to stonewall.
The irony is that by stonewalling she did not neither make the HSE look good nor the public feel safer,in fact she made the HSE look anti their public and that public certain that emergency departments re not safe. So, for all the (expensive) training she succeeded in doing the diametric opposite of what PR is supposed to do.
She was doing a lot of thinking but not much doing!
She is toeing the party line The ostrich head in the sand position………
Paxman’s “Did you threaten to overrule him?” comes to mind
When I had my son I was in a shared ward went to the bathroom there was blood on the floor when I went back later that evening it was still there so grim
Ask kenny are they safe he is supposed to be boss of the country ?
Ultimately this is one of the many knock on effects of austerity. We can’t be too surprised. Remember that pretty much nobody was given the boot in the public sector (everyone gets an A rating of course -no poor performers) and plenty of people who retired are sitting on nice big pensions.
Fire the 10? 20? 30% of the public sector who are not performing and then you’ll have the money. Not a chance in hell that will happen because our politicians haven’t got any balls. Give them a nice job in a charity instead sure where they can rob money from disabled children instead.
I think that each year the Health Minister of the day should be obliged to spend a full day in a Hospital A&E…
preferably the hospital furthest from his/her constituency.
Not enough nursing homes , 100 patients at least in Beaumont who could be discharged but no where to send them to . This would alleviate some of the problem .This in an area which was built in the 50′s and guess what has an older population although it’s successive political representatives never thought of that and it never gets mentioned in any party’s forward thinking sexy manifestos …
Why bother getting someone on the show who has no interest in answering questions, there’s plenty of people who would be more than happy to recount their experiences instead of giving the stage to an overpaid penpusher.she was no doubt getting paid while she was giving that interview and it’s of the same shoddy quality as the product she’s meant to supply. A big thumbs down from me.
Ever notice how when Leo has something positive to announce or wants to take a jab at the opposition he is plastered on every media outlet in the country, but when the department he is supposed to be in charge of has a catastrophe, Leo is nowhere to be found…
What qualifies something as being “safe”?
Emer,
Safe = Not dangerous, unlikely to cause harm, injury or damage.
But is it quantifiable in any sense? If she said it was safe or unsafe, how would she back that up?
If sick and injured patients are waiting for hours and even days on trollies and chairs to be properly treated for their condition it can be assumed that this is NOT safe.
Do you want a measurement of how many people are dying because of the situation and make the assumption that 1 death per 1000 is “safe”?
Direct the money used to payback unsecured bond holders into preventing our sick and injured from dying. Then fully fix the HSE once and for all. Cut out the waste in the Organisation. Fund front line services as a priority and give the Irish people at least one public service that works and we can be proud of.
I’m not arguing that the HSE has a huge amount to do, it’s just that in this context if the term “safe” doesn’t have an objective meaning then it’s not a useful one. Since the whole article is about her refusal to use the word ‘safe’, I wonder even if she had said “yes, it is safe”, would that have meant anything at all?
“Safe” or “unsafe” are just a measure of risk. There are a number of studies showing increased overcrowding and delays in moving patients on from the emergency department increase morbidity and mortality. Current consensus for best practice is that all patients should be admitted to the ward or discharged within 4 hours. The worse the overcrowding, the higher the risk to every patient in A&E. No-one would get away with describing the current levels of overcrowding and delays as safe.
Surely a condom is ………safe !
She seems to do a lot of thinking.
She thinks a lot so she can turn around later and say ‘I was speaking in a personal capacity and what I said bears no relation to the HSE, the Dept of Health or the Minister’!
Mary Harneys system coming home to roost now!! HSE blaming government…Government blaming HSE….what a load of rubbish!!
HSE was set up to become a beureaucratic layer soaking up huge resources while in turn reducing the service levels in public hospitals and thus driving more people into private service
Nigel, the HSE was set up to be a buffer for the Minister. If it is a funding issue that causes the problem then the HSE can deflect the hard questions to the Department which, of course, won’t have the current, on the ground figures to be able to answer a direct question and will have to refer back to the HSE, and so on, ad infinitum.
Sir Humphrey Appleby from “Yes Minister” would greatly approve.
The HSE was set up by Mary Harney supposedly to replace the health board quangoes, it has turned into a huge quango contributing a much worse service. The HSE’s primary function is to act as a buffer, to take the blame for the dismantling of the health service for privatisation, Mary Harney’s dream and goal. What we have now is a quango, over staffed and over paid at the top, and under staffed and under paid at the bottom where the front line services are. In this day and age of, as we are continuously told, the best growth and recovery in the EU, why do we have a health service not worth the name. We pay dearly for a service we do not get. One thing is sure, not one government minister or TD will have to avail of such service, and neither will any member of their families.
It was like watching Marathon Man listening to the interview… Cathal McCoille does that though, he keeps badgering interviewees into giving the answer he wants to hear and most interviewees know this and are prepared to dodge his agenda. It’s not good interviewing, it’s sensationalist and hard to listen to him sometimes.
Like paxman interviewing michael howard.
Is it safe?
Leo is over in the states, travelling in luxury I’m sure, while patients in our hospitals are being left on trolleys only to be treated by exhausted staff.
As far as I’m aware there are regular flights to and from America, get yourself home Leo, and fly economy ye wagon!
Leo and Tony O Brien will be very proud of todays interview and the response of Ms Fitzgerald….There are more people presenting themselves at a+e who have no referral from a doctor and clog up the system.Then you have the family members who arrive during the day to join the person presenting themselves at A+E.Habitual users of A+E should be charged on a sliding increasing scale for continued use.I worked 4 years in a hospital and have seen at first hand the waiting and queues.You have mothers/daughters/sons etc etc been accompanied by countless siblings taking up seats and the space while nurses and doctors attempt to work.Then you have quiet times in the A+E and 3 or 4 people waiting that could be seen much quicker but spend an age in the waiting area before been seen.Personally i think people who continually present themselves should be made pay up straight away no use of medical card etc.There is an opinion among some individuals that its worth the drama to spend time in a+e .Something to share on their social media pages and an opportunity to garner sympathy
“Is it safe” is a poor question! Hospitals have sick people as residents – viruses, infection, depression …. obviously as a result all hospital are unsafe places
These managers know nothing about health. Know nothing about anything
The facts speak for themselves. Patients on trollies, nurses working in impossible conditions and clinicians under unmanageable pressure is a recipe for delay, oversight and risk to life.
I thought that the evasion itself answered the question. Of course it is self evidently unsafe and not just for the patients to have these patients on trollies.
The nurses are at risk. These are unsafe conditions of work and I’m not surprised that absenteeism creeps in as a response to unsustainably stressful conditions.
We have lovely bank premises though! Plenty of space, plenty of resources, lots of expensive fittings and furniture.
Also, every prematurely dead patient is a potential longer term demand on the heath service saved. Dead patients are less resource hungry than live ones!
Is it safe?
Leo, mouth almighty on everything under the sun but his own department, sending out a messenger to get shot in his place. Not that I’m particularly sorry for this lady. She seems to have brought stonewalling to a fine art.
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