Election 2024: Sinn Féin denies planned ‘piggy bank heist’ as major parties clash over spending
Sinn Féin has denied claims that it is planning a €16 billion “piggy bank heist” as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil rounded on the party’s tax and election 2024 spending plans.
With just over a week and a half left until polling day, Sinn Féin on Tuesday unveiled its general election manifesto with promises to spend an extra €56 billion – made up of additional €41.8 billion capital spend and an additional €14.3 billion in current spending – over the next five years.
This includes plans for a multibillion-euro “mini budget” in the first 100 days of government and a tax package which would see the eventual abolition of the universal social charge on incomes up to €45,000.
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Your top stories on Thursday
News in Ireland
- Ireland weather: Chance of snow as multiple low temperature warnings issued by Met Éireann: A yellow low temperature and ice warning is in place across the country until Wednesday morning, with the same warning in place again overnight into Thursday.4
- Man escapes from car after crash following alleged abduction in Cork: A man was assaulted and “forcibly removed” from his Cork home before making his escape when the vehicle he was put in crashed, gardaí have said.
- Remains of Cork fisherman found by chance two decades after he disappeared, inquest hears: The remains of a missing fisherman were found by chance almost two decades after he disappeared by search and recovery volunteers testing a sonar scanner off a marina just a few hundred yards from where he had last been seen alive.
- Further 12 abuse survivors at Spiritan schools have come forward since September’s scoping inquiry: A further 12 survivors of abuse at Spiritan schools have come forward since the scoping inquiry discovered 347 allegations of child sex abuse at the five schools in September.
- ‘I have two kids who are working in the civil service and they can’t afford to buy a house’ candidate told on doorstep: “It’ll be hard to leave it,” Ballyfermot resident Mark St John tells his local People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith, referencing her retirement from politics.
- Weather forecast: A cold day today with frost and icy stretches on untreated surfaces. Dry with sunshine for many but scattered showers of sleet and snow in the north and northwest. In the afternoon a spell of heavy rain will move into the west and southwest, turning to hail, sleet and snow at times as it spreads inland. Afternoon highs of just 3 to 6 degrees
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The Big Read
- Restaurateur Gráinne O’Keefe: I cut out sugar from my diet and here’s how it went: I am a chef by profession and three years ago I opened my first restaurant, Mae – located in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, above The French Paradox wine shop. I have been cooking professionally for 16 years and was a food writer with The Irish Times for a year.
Opinion
- Kathy Sheridan: Angry flea circus buzzing around ‘woke’ Helen McEntee goes beyond the usual political sniping
- Liz Carolan: When it comes to following the money at election time, don’t even try
Business
- Labour costs and skills shortage ‘driving home rebuild costs’: Labour costs and skills shortage are continuing to drive home rebuild costs in Ireland, according to the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) which has urged homeowners to check that they are insured adequately.
Sports
- Gordon D’Arcy: Andy Farrell needs to shut out the din of negativity around the Ireland team: A din of negativity has been getting gradually louder since Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final exit to New Zealand last year, and neither a Six Nations championship title nor a drawn summer series against the world champions in South Africa has turned down the volume of discontent.
World
- US embassy in Kyiv shuts down over anticipated attack: The US embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine has received information of a potential significant air attack on Wednesday and will be closed, the US department of state consular affairs said in a statement.
- ‘I’ve discovered that I don’t want this marriage and I’m not in love with her anymore’: TTell Me About It: ‘I feel that if we divorce, I will be letting my family down and also abandoning this woman to a country that she did not intend to live in’
Podcast Highlights
Why is Fine Gael sticking with controversial candidate John McGahon?
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