We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
WITH JUST TWO days until Ireland goes to the polls, here are the main points from the manifestos of the three largest parties in the State on housing, health and the cost of living.
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin have all published policy documents of varying sizes laying out their promises, vision and ambitions for the future, with some major differences between them.
Firstly, it’s worth noting how the three parties have framed their proposals.
The first sections of each party’s manifesto align with how each of the parties have been trying to differentiate themselves ahead of this election.
Fine Gael and Simon Harris’s stated ambition of making Ireland one of the best countries to be a child.
Fianna Fáil and Micheál Martin’s repeated refrain that the next government needs to “understand” and be committed to Ireland’s economic model.
And Sinn Féin’s core message has been housing, housing, housing.
USC
Sinn Féin’s core cost-of-living proposal is abolishing the Universal Social Charge on all income up to €45,000. It says this would put an average of €1,100 back in workers’ pockets every year.
Fine Gael by comparison has promised increase the entry point at which workers pay USC.
At the moment, workers pay 3% USC on earnings above €27,382 annually. Fine Gael says it will increase this to €40,000.
On earnings above €70,044, workers currently pay 8% USC. Fine Gael says it will increase this to €75,000.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil wants to cut the lower rate from 3% to 1.5% at a minimum over the lifetime of the government.
Income tax and tax credits
Currently, workers begin paying the higher rate of tax, 40% on income over €44,000 annually.
Sinn Féin has pledged to increase the entry point to the higher rate of income tax by €4,000, meaning workers would only pay it on earnings above €48,000. It has also pledged to increase tax credits by €200.
Fine Gael wants to increase the entry point to the 40% rate of income tax by at least €2,000 each year, bringing the entry point to €54,000 annually by 2030.
On tax credits, it pledges to increase these by €75 annually.
Fianna Fáil wants to increase the entry point to the higher rate of tax to €50,000 annually, while on tax credit it wants to increase them by €100 annually.
Childcare
All three parties have pledged to cap childcare costs at €200 per child per month.
Means test for carers
All three parties have pledged to abolish the means test for carer’s allowance over the lifetime of government.
Currently, to qualify for the payment, carers must demonstrate that their household income is under a certain level – a system carers have long argued is unfair and fails to recognise the vital work they do.
Minimum wage
Minimum wage in Ireland rose to €12.70 per hour at the beginning of this year.
However, this is deemed to be below a Living Wage, a concept that looks at wages through the lense of what provides a minimum acceptable standard of living. This is currently €14.75 per hour in Ireland.
Sinn Féin has pledged to increase the minimum wage by €1.10 per hour in 2025 and to work towards the introduction of a Living Wage.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s manifestos do not outline any proposed increase to the minimum wage or make reference to a Living Wage.
State pension and retirement
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are both promising to increase the State pension to a minimum of €350 per week. Currently, the State pension sits at €289.30 per week.
Sinn Féin has pledged to increase it by €50 a week.
All three parties have also pledged to legally enable people who want to work beyond 65 to continue to do so.
Fianna Fáil has also promised to maintain the retirement age at 66.
Sinn Féin, meanwhile, has pledged to deliver the right to retire on a state pension at 65 years. Currently, it is accessible at 66 years of age.
How many houses does each party want to build?
Each of the three parties has settled on a similar overall target of roughly 300,000 homes by 2030.
Fianna Fáil wants to reach 60,000 new homes per year by 2030, including an average of 10,000 affordable homes per year and 12,000 social homes per year.
Fine Gael says it is committed to delivering 300,000 new homes by 2030. It wants 50% of these in the five major cities – Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford – and 50% elsewhere.
Included in this is 9,000 affordable homes and an average of 11,000 social homes annually by 2030.
Sinn Féin has committed to delivering 300,000 new homes between 2025 and 2029.
This would include 125,000 social, affordable purchase and affordable rental homes and 115,000 private market homes.
By 2030 it says it would deliver over 370,000 homes.
Where do the parties stand on government housing schemes?
Fianna Fáil has pledged to “protect and extend” Help to Buy (the scheme that gives first-time buyers some tax back to pay for their house deposit) until 2030 and include a “rent back boost” in assessing payment levels.
It also wants to “protect and extend” the First Home scheme (the shared equity scheme that supports first time buyers to bridge the gap between their mortgage and deposit) and roll it out on second hand properties.
On the vacancy and refurbishment grants, it also wants to “protect and expand” these until 2030 and increase them by €10,000.
Fine Gael also wants to protect both the vacancy and dereliction grant schemes until 2030, but does not mention increasing them, instead, it commits to releasing half the funds before the project is completed to help with cashflow issues.
On Help to Buy, Fine Gael also wants to extend it until 2030, but has differentiated itself from Fianna Fáil with a commitment to increase the tax back amount from €30,000 to €40,000.
Just like Fianna Fáil, it has also pledged to extend the First Home Scheme to 2030 and extend it to second hand homes.
Sinn Féin’s pitch to voters is a bit different.
A core tenet of it is the introduction of an affordable housing scheme for households with a combined income of under €90,000 annually and cheaper cost rentals of under €1000 per month for households with a combined salary of under €66,000 annually.
Under the affordable housing scheme, Sinn Féin has said house prices will range from €250,000 to €300,000 depending on the location.
It has also committed to ending what it deems an “inflationary and wasteful” First Home Scheme and phasing out Help to Buy by 2030.
Other commitments worth noting on housing are:
Fine Gael reaffirms its commitment to Sláintecare and pledges an additional 5,000 inpatient hospital beds by 2031.
It pledges to grow the health workforce and at least double the number of college places for Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech and Language Therapy.
It also pledges to increase training places for nurses, doctors, pharmacists and dentists.
Fine Gael has also committed to expanding health screening programmes across a number of areas, including cancer and breast check.
It also promises to continue to expand free GP care to all under 18s and lower the monthly costs of prescriptions to €50.
You can read through Fine Gael’s health commitments in its manifesto here, from pages 79-90.
By comparison, Sinn Féin talks about taking “big, bold steps” towards universal healthcare.
It outlines how its two priorities are delivering fully universal public healthcare by 2035 and delivering free prescription medicines for all households, abolishing prescription charges for medical cardholders and delivering median-income medical cards.
Central to the party’s proposals is a plan to deliver a landmark public GP contract, employing 250 public GPs and increasing GP training capacity by 60%.
Matching Fine Gael, it also pledges an additional 5,000 hospital beds by 2030.
You can read more about Sinn Féin’s full health proposals here.
Fianna Fáil by comparison has promised an additional 4,000 hospital beds and a further 100 ICU beds.
Fianna Fáil wants to extend free GP care to all children under 12 years of age.
It also wants to reduce the drugs payment scheme from €80 monthly to €40.
Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael pledge to expand access to publicly funded IVF in their manifestos and ensure Hormone Replacement Therapy is available at no cost to all who need it.
On drugs, Sinn Féin makes no commitments in its manifesto around decriminalising drugs. Fianna Fáil on the other hand has pledged to decriminalise certain drugs only, likely cannabis.
Similarly, Fine Gael also mentions a health-led approach for people in possession of drugs for personal use.
You can read more about Fianna Fáil health proposals here from pages 52 – 68.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say