Health policy
Miriam Donohoe
The Green Party has said that it would freeze tax cuts in order to deliver a first-class public health service.
Party leader Trevor Sargent said that it would be "incredibly difficult" to deliver urgently-needed health service reform alongside the across-the-board tax cuts promised by other parties.
Speaking at the launch of the party's healthcare policy in Dublin, Mr Sargent said that in government the party would deliver more hospital beds, more consultants and free primary healthcare for children under six. "But I cannot see how this can be achieved alongside the widespread tax cuts other parties are promising," he said.
Mr Sargent said that if parties were asking people to vote for them on the basis that they would cut taxes, and also saying that they would increase health services, people were entitled to ask how they could square that circle.
"We are holding the rates as they are because we see the importance of delivering a health service which can ensure people get the services on the basis of their needs, which is not happening at the moment," he said.
The Green Party would scrap plans to build private hospitals on the grounds of public hospitals; back the nurses' claim for a 35-hour week; introduce free primary healthcare for children under six; provide an additional 400 acute beds and 400 step-down beds each year and abolish tax incentives for private nursing homes. It would also ban TV junk food advertising aimed at children.