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THREE OF THE Dáil’s smaller parties held budget-sized press conferences close to Leinster House this morning.
The SocDems, the Greens and Solidarity-People Before Profit all wanted to talk up their Budget 2018 wish lists, and staged press events that clocked in in-or-around the half-hour mark.
Partly a result of the unusual makeup of the current Dáil, some smaller parties have already had success in getting proposals accepted into the government’s Budget for the coming year – it was announced this week, for example, that maternity leave would be extended for mothers whose babies are born prematurely.
That measure was initially proposed by the Green Party TD Catherine Martin.
Many of the proposals aired at this morning are unlikely to be put into practice unless the parties manage to get into a coalition government at the next election.
But the events, at least, give us an insight into where they stand…
Greens leader Eamon Ryan said the party wanted to prioritise housing and education funding, as he kicked off their event upstairs at the Molesworth Gallery.
As you would expect, green issues were also high on the agenda. They want a new fund to be created to create “new clean energy” industries in the Midlands for Bord na Mona workers.
And in transport the party wants “an immediate increase in funding for greenways and public electric vehicle charging points” to help decarbonise the transport system.
‘Six towns’
In the most novel idea put forward at the event, Ryan suggested that the government should “experiment” by introducing a basic income scheme for six different towns around the country – to test how it would work nationwide.
The towns, which would bid to be involved in the programme, would “try out a basic approach to social welfare”.
All social welfare recipients would get a minimum of €200 per week and the results would be analysed and modeled to assess the impact. Dole payments – particularly for younger people – have been slashed in recent years, in the wake of the recession: currently 18-24-year-olds on Jobseeker’s Allowance get just over €100.
“International analysis we read says that when it comes to cracking poverty, the best way is to give people a basic safety net,” said Ryan.
Asked whether such an experiment would result in a flood of people moving to the towns in the programme, Ryan said that would be “not a bad outcome”.
There are market towns all over the country in need of being turned around, he insisted – asking reporters to “imagine a thronged, heaving, popular, young, hip Mayo town”.
Across the road in Buswells Hotel, Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd-Barrett, Brid Smith and Ruth Coppinger outlined the priorities for the left-wing grouping.
“The lives of the many could be positively transformed through socialist policies that redistribute the wealth and profits of the corporations and the super-rich,” according to Solidarity-PBP.
They say:
Where would the money come from?
It’s the question left-wing politicians always get asked… Here’s what Solidarity-PBP said in the document circulated to reporters today:
The standard response from conservative forces is always the same- where will the money come from? Our alternative budget answers this question, using only official statistics, by pointing to the massive increases in profits for the corporations and the wealth of the richest in our society. Our proposals would mean those in the top 7% of income earners paying a little more, leaving the bottom 93% without any extra burden. The fact that nearly €16 billion can be found in this manner confirms the fact that Ireland is a very wealthy country.
An anti-corruption agency, a land hoarding tax and a sunbed tax were some of the measures put forward in the alternative budget of the Social Democrats.
The party, which is just over two years old, has a brand new HQ on Molesworth Street – across from Leinster House – and eight candidates announced for the next general election.
If they were in government, what would they do?
Joint party leaders Catherine Murphy and Roísín Shortall said the country should spend wisely in order to save for the future.
The party would not cut taxes.
Said Shortall:
The last thing the country needs is populist tax cuts which amounts to a few euros a week in some people’s pockets.
In order to tackle the housing crisis it would introduce a land hoarding tax – penalising developers who hold onto sites – which the party says would raise €560 million .
The idea behind the tax is it would free up land and vacant sites, allowing builders to get building. The Social Democrats would also introduce an immediate rent cap nationwide and scrap the Help-To-Buy Scheme.
In terms of health, it wants to it wants to introduce Sláintecare (the plan put forward from the long-term health planning committee that met earlier this year). It would reduce prescription charges and introduce free GP care on a phased basis.
The Social Democrats want to bring in 13 weeks parental leave for either parent to avail of. They also want to increase funding to child and family agency Tusla and set-up a Brexit Fund for businesses that might be adversely affected.
All in all, the party wants to spend €2.3 billion.
In terms of cash the party wants to raise, it would do this through a number of measures such as:
The SocDems say their revenue raising measures would bring in €1.2 billion.
The party also wants to see its idea of an anti-corruption agency finally come to fruition. While the government has indicated it wants to see something similar, it was the Social Democrats that floated the idea first.
The cost of setting one up would be about €5 million, and it would be tasked with detecting and prosecuting corruption and white-collar crime.
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Hopefully the Journal will follow up on this story to find out if he is true to his word and gives that pay rise.
I heard they would just be happy if they could recharge their phones and laptop’s in work!
O’Leary at least is honest in his contempt for democracy
“That’s what we did in Ireland, when we didn’t get the right result in a referendum we voted again until we did get the right result, twice.”
And by the “right result” of course he means what’s beneficial for Ryanair.
And it should be remembered also that Michael was a bit of a tender snowflake himself. Hand fed from the silver spoon:
“O’Leary knows nothing about public service. Born to the silver spoon, he was a Clongowes Wood College boy and a student at Trinity College Dublin where he lived in a family-owned apartment before he began his private business enterprises. O’Leary was a poor financial adviser to Ryanair founder Tony Ryan, advising him to close the airline, or else sell it to Aer Lingus.”
@Patches O Houlihan: Huh? You’re accusing O’Leary of having “contempt for democracy” by pointing out the government and EU’s “contempt for democracy”.
@Les Behan:
And O’Leary fully approves of Irish government’s and E.U contempt for our democracy as it served Ryanair’s interests.
And equally he has contempt for Britain’s democratic decision to exit the E.U because it’s not to Ryanair’s benefit. Democracy is largely irrelevant to capital. All that matters is profit.
@Patches O Houlihan: Absolutely, I can’t disagree with you there. More accurately though is that Michael O’Leary and Ryanair have benefited greatly from the government and the EU’s contempt for democracy.
@Larry Doyle:
Ryanair social media officer, ideal for Wally.
@Patches O Houlihan:
If it wasn’t for O’Leary chasing profits we’d all still be paying several hundred for flights to the UK, and more again to fly beyond.
But of course, you’d actually like that, because there’d be a load of cabin crew on 70k and defined benefit pensions, striking for 18% raises, and you could say:
‘Solidarity with the aer lingus cabin crew who only seek to obtain a greater share of the wealth which they create’
every time someone questioned their high wages.
It wouldn’t matter to you that the common man couldn’t afford flights, as long as less people among the well off were paying high prices to support the higher wages of less staff.
You see, that’s what competition and driving costs down does, it drives down prices for the consumer, and creates a greater demand for goods and services. It’s up to the consumer to move with the times and ensure they listen in school and obtain the skills necessary to compete in the marketplace for well paying jobs.
@Rónán O’Suilleabháin:
Ryanair would not exist without state intervention:
“But where would O’Leary be without State support and public money? Ryan sought political backing to withstand Aer Lingus’s predatory pricing and Charles Haughey obliged, with Ryanair getting a free run at Stansted Airport through a demarcation of the routes between the two airlines. Ryan also secured State subsidies in return for serving provincial airports and in 1992, rent breaks for Ryanair’s headquarters at Dublin Airport.
Another part of the Ryanair history not dwelt on by its champions is how the State-owned Aer Rianta contributed to the saving of the airline in its early days by writing off more than £1 million (€0.9 milliom) in landing charges and other fees and the renegotiating of deals at Cork and Shannon. These layers to the Ryanair story are now banished in favour of the macho O’Leary soundbites, such as “there is no principle that can’t be overturned for competitive reasons”. Likewise, it appears there are no depths to which the unprincipled O’Leary will not reach to excoriate public servants.”
And O’Leary cares as little for competition as he does for democracy. Capital cares only for profit and profit is maximized by eliminating competition which is why capitalism always tends towards monopolies and cartels. This is what is euphemistically called “consolidation” in the capitalist media and we’ve seen a huge amount of mergers & acquisitions in the airline industry.
If O’ Leary ever achieves a monopoly in air travel from this island you’ll soon find out how much he cares about affordable flights for the “common man” or you can just listen to him now.
“HARD-pressed funeral goers are Ryanair’s most profitable customers, chief executive Michael O’Leary revealed unapologetically yesterday”
@Larry Doyle:
And now he runs the biggest airline in Europe
Nor it appears does O’Leary have much interest in providing affordable flights for the disabled community. Disabled people stage protest against Ryanair in Spain for ‘systematic discrimination’ http://jrnl.ie/3201795
@Patches O Houlihan:
So FF actually did something for the citizens to stop AL ripping people off and they owed a million to another government quango in their early days. So ? You have never employed anyone or run a business I assume.
@lavbeer: Back in the early days the Government pulled it’s own entity (Aer Lingus) out of major routes (including Stansted!!!) to allow Ryanair to get going on those specific routes – no competition. I’ve always wondered what influenced these decisions.
@Paul Furey: Europe perhaps? AL was in need of investment that the government couldn’t afford? No idea to be honest. But it was for the better of the people and the economy to make travel more accessible. The drive of FR versus AL over the past couple of decades is amazing. AL still a little precious and use to protection but new ownership has given them a good platform to develop.
Lavbeer, You understand that O’Leary like all capitalists only employs workers in order to exploit them? The worker is always paid less in wages than the revenue they make for the business and the difference is the profit. Ryanair is doing its workers or customers no favours. Private enterprise always extracts more from society than it provides.
@Patches O Houlihan: The worker is always paid less in wages than the revenue they make for the business and the difference is the profit.
Tell you what – you setup a company providing a service of some sort. I will gladly be a customer.
@Rónán O’Suilleabháin: they love people like you ronan — so they do
We need lots o O’Leary- I was at a gathering recently where Michael was key guest-it’s not pretty- but he creates jobs-I’ve 4 kids – & we need jobs
Fair play to him. The worst thing you can do in these situations is apologise. The “snowflakes” are never happy.
@Awkward Seal: That’s the “power” of snowflakes. They protest, and then they pay them to get cheap wonderful holiday in Amsterdam or wherever…
Amsterdam is a lovely city though. You can hit up the Rijks museum in the morning, a joint in the evening and protest the sexual exploitation of women in the red light district at night.
The people will whinge but will still take up ryanairs offers.
@Pat Patterson:
correct this has been the Ryan-air policy for years and has made them the biggest airline in Europe. When people critique them they should always remember that Aer Lingus and BA ran a cartel between Britain and Ireland. My mother paid 250-300 punts in the mid 80′s for a Shannon – London flight. They broke this cartel and made travel to different destinations possible for all.
The Irish and British governments set the air fares back then. Deregulation is responsible for lower fares not any individual airline. Same happened with Telecom Eireann, Denis O’Brien wasn’t responsible for cheap phone calls but was in the right place to be market leader.
Anything that gets up Brendan howlins nose is OK with me.
Doesn’t have far to travel.
He really is the King of there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Well after Trump that is,
Sure look, aren’t they getting publicity. ie doing their job
The real ingenuousness of this is that he said this with the sole intention of generating further articles such as this one. Well played Michael…well played.
I meant to say something to the effect of it’s ingenious. Unfortunately, I don’t believe there is such a word as “ingeniousness”, but auto-correct did what it could manage.
As a proud grammar-Nazi, I must do the honourable thing.
‘Ingenuity’ will work for you here
Yep. The time has finally come, and I knew it would eventually, where businesses start to capitalise on taking the piss out of liberals. Won’t be long before lots of businesses and advertising companies start taking aim at them. Not only has the backlash begun, but it’s going to become huge business.
@Mr Snuffleupagus: I mostly agree with his sentiments but what are “liberals”?!
We should be careful of not going the way of the USA where you are either Liberal or Conservative. Grouping people like that is not helpful. Someone can have very liberal view son one item and conservative views on another.
Also, an attack on a free media is an attack on all of us, whether we realise it or not.
Clever marketing and good exposure.. He’s not gonna publicly criticize them for that tweet
I wonder would he be happy if Aer Lingus ran an add referring to Ryanair Staff traveling on flights in the loos…!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-592451/Ryanair-staff-fly-home-toilet-seats.html
@Stephen Duffy: Even if that’s 2004 still worth a read..
@Stephen Duffy: Whether FR are happy or not is irrelevant. AL need to spice up their social media. 101 things they could poke run at FR.
Looking forward to seeing what strokes they pull for Cheltenham this year…always guaranteed a laugh.
It would be great if that loudmouth would actually improve their customer service, such as having staff to answer customer tweets and actually employ native English speakers for phone queries rather than outsourcing to an Indian call centre.
@Permo Dermo: you sound like you are pining for the old days there dermo
It’s a bit Dickens when Mr O Leary is in good form and staff might get a pay rise, surely they are on good salaries already eh?
Trumps media mentor.. the master of negative pubicity
Ryanair are masters at getting free publicity, all they have to do is slightly offend the easily offended, and boom, their name is splattered all over the media.
That awful silence when you’re a brexit lover and a Michael o Leary sycophant and a Trump sycophant.
That PC crap is so well spread now that no matter what you say there will always be somebody offended.
Make North Korea great again! O Leary launches €1 single fare flights to North Korea. Hu Flun Dung, Minister for Tourism expresses his delight to Rhe Un Ayr.
Mind your own house O Leary. The same might happen to yiu
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