Sinn Féin has outlined its political and social agenda for government in the event its candidates are returned to the Dáil following the next general election.
Dismissing current opposition parties as "bland" and "ineffective", and blaming the inability of all Dáil parties to address the issues of health, housing, equality and the economic slowdown, party president Gerry Adams said politics had been brought into disrepute by "defrauding and cheating the people."
Mr Adams was addressing this morning’s pre-election strategy meeting of candidates and activists in Dublin this morning.
Sinn Féin, he said, was committed to public service and that if the party stood for anything it is to act as "agents of change".
"This means tackling such crucial issues as low pay, working conditions, the lack of affordable childcare, the role of government in the economy and the need to address regional and rural underdevelopment," he said.
Economically, the party has committed itself to a complete review of the tax system with the removal of all those on the minimum wage from the tax net.
Mr Adams also committed the party to a wide-reaching job creation programme that would offer the same resources and entitlements to indigenous enterprise as to inward investors.
"It is a disgrace," he said, "that local business people cannot get help on the same level as fly-by-night speculators who have not real stake in this country and who follow the cheapest labour market in their effort to maximise profit."
He also committed Sinn Féin to restructuring the health service so that healthcare would be free at the point of delivery to everyone.
Measures included in the restructuring include free GP care, free hospital care, free medication and the creation of a single hospital waiting list that would end the disparity between private and public patients.
This, he said, would be funded from the Exchequer.
On housing, he said Sinn Féin would push for major state investment in social housing with funding from the National Development Plan with the guarantee that 70 per cent of people now on local authority housing lists would be housed within two years.
In relation to Northern Ireland, Mr Adams called for an "alliance of Irish unity which would include all those interested in creating the conditions need to achieve national unity, including parties that are currently in the Dáil.
". . .unionists [should not] ignore the fact that they represent 20 per cent of the population of this island," Mr Adams added.
"Their potential is greater in an Irish state which wants their vital and essential contribution than it is as 2 per cent of a British state which has consistently demonstrated no real interest in them . . .
"The Good Friday Agreement is a compromise between conflicting positions. Bedding that Agreement down, implement it fully and stabilising the peace process is the immediate short to mid-term priority of our party.
Finally, he called on the Government to back-down from their stated position of putting the Nice Treaty to the people again.
"If the Government is genuine about this issue they should begin by respecting the result of the Nice Treaty and end their attempts to re-run the same referendum twice.
"They should address the concerns raised by the electorate. Irish neutrality should be enshrined in Irish law," Mr Adams said.