The Progressive Democrats have promised increased spending to end inequality in health and education as well as continued income tax cuts at their final national conference before a general election.
After a weekend of sustained attacks on Labour's new fiscal policy, the PD leader, Ms Mary Harney, said yesterday she nevertheless did not rule out going into coalition with that party should the situation arise. She could still do business with Labour "provided they are not going to abandon the idea of reducing taxes for ordinary working people". She said she had no arguments with Labour's spending priorities.
However, income tax cuts must continue, she said, although she also remarked that most of her tax-cutting programme could be achieved before the next government was formed. "If Labour are in it, they're hardly going to put them up again," she said.
"Companies are paying tax at 12.5 per cent, and the money you make out of property speculation is taxed at 20 per cent. That's not compatible with workers paying tax at over 40 per cent," she said.
The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said last month that he would consider entering government with the PDs should they be able to agree a programme for government, but he thought that was an unlikely prospect.
Ms Harney yesterday said she would not predict how many seats the party would win in the next election, but rejected speculation that they could face an electoral calamity. "We'll get a lot more than we got last time," she told The Irish Times, "but I'm not going to put a figure on it. The polls show 25 per cent of people are undecided and we have to work to win their support," she added.
Ms Harney said her target of a £100 child benefit payment for every child, announced at the weekend, should be reached in "two or three years". This would involve a very substantial increase on the current £42.50 for the first two children and £50 for the third and subsequent child.
In her speech to her party conference in Cork on Saturday night she promised further cuts in tax rates over the next two budgets, saying: "You ain't seen nothing yet." She singled out the top rate, saying it was paid by a quarter of the workforce and that her party would not "turn their backs" on those people. By 2002 "nobody earning £200 a week or less will pay any income tax", she declared. This would mean just 20 per cent of earners paid the top rate, she said.
She committed her party to "the elimination of child poverty in Ireland" and said she wanted to see child benefit raised to £100 a month for every child.
In order to help disadvantaged children to succeed "we will have to channel disproportionately higher levels of investment into the schools in which they learn and into the communities in which they live". Education, she said, was "the passport to prosperity" and was vital to give all children "a fair start in life".
The next budget would raise the old age pension beyond the £100 a week promised in the 1997 general election campaign. In addition, she wanted to see women who have not built up their own pension entitlements and who are currently treated as dependants of their spouses given a full old age pension in their own right.
In relation to health care she said she wanted "equal access to high-quality health services regardless of income or social status". Money alone would not provide an answer, although the Minister of State, Ms Liz O'Donnell, said yesterday the party was committed to greater spending on health and education.
Ms Harney said a "value-for-money" audit of the healthcare delivery system was now under way, and that "a major reform of our whole system for delivering healthcare is required".