Use pensions reserve to fund schools - SF

SINN FÉIN will today call for a €5 billion withdrawal from the National Pensions Reserve Fund as a way to finance schools and social housing, an increase in the number of tax bands and the abolition of tax exile status.

The party’s pre-budget submission, to be launched by economic spokesman Arthur Morgan, marks a departure.

For the first time, the estimated cost to the Exchequer is fully outlined and it also retreats from the provision of free universal healthcare or for tax increases.

In the submission, Mr Morgan will blame the Government for “squandering the surpluses of the boom years” and argue that it “must not revert to type, relying on short-sighted policies aimed at getting it through the next local and EU elections”.

However, Sinn Féin does call for substantial increases in public spending in areas it has identified as important – including a 5 per cent increase in the PAYE tax credit from €1,830 to €1,921, a €15 per week increase in welfare and pension payments (at a cost of €908 million to the exchequer) and the retention of medical card entitlement for over-70s.

It calls for a payment pause to the reserve fund for one year, saving €1.6 billion.

An additional once-off €5 billion withdrawal should be used to build schools and social housing, it argues.