The Green Party is pledging €10 billion more for investment in public transport if returned to government following the general election – as well as a new tax on business class flights and higher speeding fines for people with more disposable income.
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman launched his party’s manifesto in Dublin on Tuesday, urging voters to return the Greens to government for a second term – and warning that only his party could safeguard climate policy.
He said that allocating this much money to public transport would “be a key issue for us” in programme for government negotiations, arguing that the Greens have “demonstrated that we can negotiate hard”.
“Public transport has been the poor relation of transport spending in this country for too long.”
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Mr O’Gorman also promised a new dedicated agency to manage migration and integration, one of the most vexed policy areas faced by the Coalition government, and said Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael had blocked this proposal in recent years.
The Greens are proposing to take €7 billion from the Apple tax windfall and add in €3 billion from a redesigned National Development Plan (NDP) to fund its public transport promises. This includes allocations for big public transport infrastructure projects such as the Dublin Metro and extending the rail line from Limerick City to Shannon, among others; and halving the time it takes for these projects to be completed. It also wants to target commuter bugbears such as the prevalence of “ghost buses” that never turn up at the stop.
The party’s manifesto also commits to lowering the voting age to 16, and to mandate gender balancing at Cabinet level.
It is promising to introduce speeding fines based on a percentage of the offender’s disposable income, as is done in Finland, and to introduce incentives for smaller and lighter vehicles while rolling out lower default speed limits. A new “climate ticket” is also promised, giving greater savings to frequent public transport users.
The party is also pledging to create a super junior minister for regional development who would attend Cabinet, and build an average of 50,000-53,000 homes a year over the life of the next government.
It would overhaul the current government’s Help to Buy scheme by introducing price caps on eligible homes depending on where in the country people are buying a property. Help to Buy would also be extended to those renters trying to purchase from their landlords.
A new citizens’ housing fund, allowing voters to invest in capital spending on housing with a steady rate of return, is also a manifesto commitment for the Greens.
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On vacancy it is promising to stage payments under the Government’s existing vacant and derelict homes schemes, which currently must be funded entirely upfront by those taking advantage of the grants.
The party’s manifesto commits it to increasing social welfare payments in line with earnings and inflation, and to introduce a pilot basic income scheme for carers in line with a similar programme for artists it rolled out in the last government – which it also wants to extend.
The party is also promising to encourage Irish holidaymakers to take their breaks at home, and to introduce new regulations for the short-term letting market.
On childcare Mr O’Gorman is promising to provide a new public model and to introduce a single national fee structure for public and private providers which would guarantee fees at “low, accessible levels set by the State”. Under this system the party says that families will be charged no more than €200 per child per month, introduced on a phased basis.
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