Recent election promises from Fine Gael have been described as a “Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen tribute act”, as political opponents accuse the party of seeking to buy the election with a series of expensive spending commitments.
Fine Gael insisted its promises were carefully costed in its election manifesto which was published yesterday but critics – including its Government partners Fianna Fáil – questioned a number of aspects of the document.
Launching the Labour Party manifesto in Dublin yesterday, the party’s finance spokesman Ged Nash said that “Simon Harris’s ‘new energy’ is starting to look like a Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen tribute act.”
Mr Nash was responding to news that Fine Gael in its manifeso launched in Tipperary on Sunday had promised to give €1,000 to every baby, placing the money in a savings account until they are 18 years old.
The Fine Gael manifesto also promised to cut taxes by €7 billion, part of a plan to increase spending by €52 billion between next year and 2030, including an extra €2.5 billion to pay for a €60 increase to the State pension in that period.
The document also commits to almost €1 billion in additional spending on childcare with a view to bringing monthly costs down to €200 per child and to provide 30,000 new places.
There is a commitment to building 300,000 homes over five years. In addition, Fine Gael says the Help-to-Buy Scheme would be extended until 2030 and increased to €40,000.
“I believe this five-year vision sets out a brighter future for our country, a more secure future in an uncertain world where the economy, your job, your livelihood, is protected,” Mr Harris said.
“You can keep more of your own hard-earned money and worry less about the cost of accessing State services. We will get our young people out of box rooms in their parents’ houses and into homes of their own.”
But opponents immediately questioned the Fine Gael plan.
Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance Jack Chambers said there was no provision for a new public sector pay deal in the document. Fine Gael said that the costs of any new pay agreement in the public sector would be included as part of the costs for maintaining of existing level of service (ELS) – the additional costs of providing services each year.
But guidelines published by the Parliamentary Budget Office – which costs many policy proposals for politicians – say that the costs of pay deals are typically not included in ELS figures.
Last night, Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe defended his party’s costings.
“The Fine Gael manifesto has set aside over €15 billion for the costs of our public services in the years ahead,” he said.
“This will contain funding for any new pay agreement. It would not be wise to explicitly suggest the cost of a new agreement as the current agreement is in place until 2026, so negotiations are yet to begin.”
Fianna Fáil also questioned whether the costs for additional health workers and gardaí were adequately provided for in the Fine Gael document.
Fine Gael’s budgetary figures show that health spending is due to increase by about a billion euro every year, which the party insists will cover additional costs.
The Sinn Féin spokesman on health, David Cullinane, said the Fine Gael manifesto for health “lacks new ideas or proper costings. The total funding that Fine Gael are committing for the health service would not even open all of the hospital beds which they are promising, never mind everything else.”
The cost of 6,000 gardaí is put at just €61 million in the Fine Gael document, though parliamentary questions answered by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee puts the cost of just 1,000 extra gardaí at €47 million in a full year.
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