The Labour Party has promised to provide a free family doctor service for all, to more than double the capitation grant to schools and to introduce a substantial new childcare payment.
In a pre-Budget statement of its priorities, the party has also promised to increase pensions from £96 a week to £120 and to backdate the rise to January 1st, 2001, if it wins power. The party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said that this backdating would be "a mechanism to return the money raised in DIRT tax arrears back to the people in a fair and balanced way".
Free GP care, the party's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, said at a press conference yesterday, would be introduced over two years at a cost of £420 million a year.
The party says it will raise the capitation grant for primary schools from £80 a child to £200 a child and from the £202 proposed for secondary schools by the Government to £500 per child.
The party proposes the introduction of a childcare payment to all parents, as well as increasing the current child-benefit payments. The new payment would amount to £20 a child per week for the under-fives and £10 a week for those aged five to 14.
The party is also proposing a £20 increase in child benefit for the first two children to £62.50 per child a month, and a £15 increase for subsequent children to £71 per child per month.
The party proposes raising the single person's personal allowance - currently £5,700 a year - by £2,000 and £4,000 for a married couple. This would allow a single person to earn £150 a week before paying income tax, the party says, with a married couple earning twice that (or slightly less if only one person was working).
The party also proposes a £14 a-week increase in basic social welfare payments, an increase of £100 million in Overseas Development Aid, bringing it to 0.48 per cent of GNP, and an increase in the level of rent relief to bring it to current levels of mortgage- interest relief.