The Labour Party will retain the Universal Social Charge (USC) and return it to a health contribution, “what it started life out as”, with funding ring-fenced for the health service, according to Labour Party finance spokesman Ged Nash.
The Party will also create a State construction company, directly employing design teams and construction workers as public servants with the same terms and conditions.
It will establish an Independent Standing Commission on Taxation and Social Welfare to provide annual reports on the cost of tax expenditures, review efficacy of tax breaks and identify potential loopholes in the tax code. The commission will operate in the same way as the Commission on Law Reform.
And it will broaden the tax base with increased taxes on wealth, rather than income.
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The measures are part of the proposals in the Labour Party’s finance manifesto which include its plans for the Apple Tax windfall funds.
The party will spend €7 billion of the funds on housing, including €6 billion for the State Construction Company, with an additional €1 billion for water infrastructure and servicing of land.
It would also spend €6 billion on climate measures including €2.5 billion for a national retrofitting plan and €2.5 billion on major public transport projects regional development along with €1 billion for direct State equity stakes in offshore wind developments.
Speaking at the launch Mr Nash confirmed the party would not abolish the USC. “There will be adjustments made, but in line with inflation. If somebody receives a wage increase that they won’t be paying any more in USC the following year than they did” before the increase.
“The old health contribution was turned into the USC. It “should be funding a modern, 21st century health service fit for a wealthy republic”.
Mr Nash said with a State Construction Company “people are employed as public servants on those kinds of terms and conditions in the way that people who used to build homes for the local authorities worked”.
Dublin Central candidate Senator Marie Sherlock said the construction model in Ireland is subcontractor based, “a dysfunction at the heart of how we build houses in this country”. The party wants to “transform that subcontractor-type model” with a State construction company.
The party will also introduce a €150 million freedom to learn fund which Cllr John Walsh the party’s Dublin West candidate, said would fund free part-time degrees and masters’ as part of lifelong learning.
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