Dublin Chamber Analysis of Political Party Promises for Election 2020

With less than 48 hours until the General Election, we would like to share our analysis of a number of the main political party manifestos. Below, we compare them to Dublin Chamber’s General Election Manifesto, which we have developed in consultation with you, our members, and with the approval of our governing Council.

Underlying our recommendations is a belief that the business community has an important and positive role to play in Irish society, not least by driving growth and employment. The number of people in the workforce has risen by over 400,000 since unemployment peaked at 15% in 2012, and the vast majority of these jobs were created by the private sector. It is private enterprise that generates the wealth needed to pay for badly needed public infrastructure and improved public services.

Dublin Chamber’s General Election Manifesto calls for a ‘Decade of Delivery’ to secure a sustainable future for Dublin. This means proper urban infrastructure, sustainable urban planning and housing, and a modern flexible workforce. It also means sharpening our competitive edge to support entrepreneurship and indigenous enterprise, to match the success of our foreign direct investment strategy. Please ask your local candidates and canvassers about these priorities on the doorstep.

As votes are counted and negotiations for Government get under way, Dublin Chamber will continue to champion the role of business in society and the role of Dublin in Ireland. I ask you, as a Dublin Chamber member, to play your part on Saturday.

Please share this message with your colleagues and staff to ensure that the voice of Dublin business is heard in General Election 2020. 

 Regards,

Aebhric McGibney

Director of Public & International Affairs

  Fianna Fáil

Enterprise

·        Reduce the CGT rate from 33% to 25%. This measure will cost €267m.

·        Increase the lifetime limit of Entrepreneurial Relief to €15m. This measure will cost €84m.

Transport & Infrastructure

·        Start DART Underground: We are committing to an initial capital cost of €200m over the next five years as part of the full implementation of the DART Underground.

·        Prioritize the electrification of rail lines around the country, particularly on commuter services as part of rail investment within the capital spending envelope.

·        Increase the urban National Cycling strategy by €50m.

·        Implement legislation to regulate E-Scooters

Housing

·        Establish a 33% top up First Time Buyers Special Savings Incentive Scheme

·        Ensure the rapid implementation and expansion of the Affordable Home scheme up to 2025 to build homes available for purchase for below €250,000. This will be significantly increased with a €2.5bn fund, some €2.2bn above current commitments over five years and will operate in conjunction with the new Land Development Agency.

·        Reduce development levies to stimulate construction.

·        Directly build 10,000 new social housing units per annum at an additional cost of €570m per annum above current spending levels.

Labour

·        Invest an additional €81m to increase the universal childcare subsidy from €20 per week to €80 per week.

·        Introduce a tax credit for registered childminders of 0-3-year olds worth €2,000 for average income households at a cost of €26m.

Dublin

·        Hold a vote on a directly elected Dublin Mayor.

 Fine Gael

Enterprise

·        Develop a comprehensive new national SME and Entrepreneurship strategy.

·        Review CGT rates in each Budget over the next five years, in particular with the objective of supporting innovation driven enterprises.

·        Make Irish SMEs the greenest in Europe. Using resources from the ring-fenced Carbon Tax Fund, we will create a €10 million Green SMEs Fund and provide SMEs up to €2,000 each towards professional advice.

Transport & Infrastructure

·        Complete the BusConnects programme and ensure that MetroLink proceeds through planning and to construction. DART Expansion will be well underway, resulting in enhanced capacity and new DART services.

·        Complete an economic evaluation of a high speed link between Dublin-Belfast, Dublin-Limerick Junction and Dublin-Cork.

·        Publish a five year plan to increase the numbers of people cycling on a daily basis to work from 57,000 now to at least 120,000.

·        Fund the necessary upgrades of the country’s water network.

Housing & Planning

·        The decision to rezone land often results in a windfall for landowners, and fuels speculation instead of making efficient use of land for the public good… Fine Gael will work to capture, through the taxation system, a significant proportion of the windfall gains that occur.

·        Extend the Serviced Sites Fund to private lands. 

·        Comprehensive reform of judicial reviews across the planning system, to ensure that large-scale housing, renewable energy, public transport and other essential infrastructure projects are not unduly delayed by vexatious objections.

Labour

·        Over the next five years, invest an extra €400 million… to increase the thresholds and the subsidy rates of the new National Childcare Scheme over the next 5 years.

Dublin

·        Establish a Dublin Citizens’ Assembly, to consider what type of local government structure and directly elected mayor, if any, would be most appropriate for Dublin.

 Sinn Féin

Trade

·        Remove Ireland from the EU-USA Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement.

Enterprise

·        Instigate an All-Ireland economic development, investment and jobs strategy working with our colleagues in the Assembly.

·        Establish a state-wide Irish Enterprise Agency

·        Greater diversity in the source countries of FDI and greater regional balance in the spread of FDI jobs.

·        Increase funding for InterTradeIreland by 20%.

·        Treble funding for the Trading Online Vouchers Scheme to get more Irish SMEs online.

 Transport & Infrastructure

·        No carbon tax increases in the absence of viable alternatives.

·        Progress the extension of the Luas to Bray, Finglas, Lucan and Poolbeg, the DART underground, and completing the Dublin Metro by 2027.

·        Invest in cycling infrastructure including the metropolitan cycle network set out in the Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan and the Athlone to Galway EuroVelo network.

Housing & Planning

·        Provide an additional €6.5 billion in order to deliver over 100,000 public homes on public land to meet social and affordable housing needs

·        Reduce and freeze rents for three years.

·        Tackle land hoarding and speculation through a stronger vacant sites tax and a new Active Land Management Agency. Sinn Féin will increase the Vacant Site Levy from 7% to 15%.

·        Repeal the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2015 allowing Ministers to introduce mandatory planning guidelines.

·        Repeal the mandatory ministerial guidelines on apartment design and building heights introduced in 2018.

Labour

·        Legislate to promote greater access to remote working, ensuring employers give due consideration to any request to work remotely made by an employee.

·        Transform childcare into a fully-fledged public service so that workers are properly paid and fees slashed by 66% or more than €500 per month on average.

 Green Party

Enterprise

·        Implement a capital gains tax roll-over relief for successful company venture exits that are then reinvested into further early stage investment into Irish start-ups.

·        Promote share-based employment schemes to provide incentives to employees with company ownership to push for company success for themselves, not just their employers.

·        Grant a capital gains tax exemption for the Employment Incentive and Investment scheme (EIIS) to encourage investors to finance risky but worthy start-ups.

Transport & Infrastructure

·        Secure 10% of the capital transport budget for walking, 10% for cycling and split the remainder 2:1 in favour of public transport over road building and maintenance.

·        Reconsider the case for advancing the planning for the Interconnector (DART Underground) between Spencer dock and Inchicore.

·        Continue to support the BusConnects project.

·        Promoting new e-mobility solutions including car-sharing, car-pooling, ride sharing and municipal e-bike and e-scooter schemes.

Housing & Planning

·        Simplify compliance processes to allow empty units above shops to be converted and occupied.

·        Empower local authorities to access finance with more flexibility to facilitate the construction of social housing.

·        Reform housing procurement methods to maximise effective and timely delivery of housing and value for money.

Dublin

·        Hold a Citizens Assembly on a directly-elected executive mayor of a new regional authority for Dublin, followed by a plebiscite within the four Dublin local authorities, so that the new executive Mayor of Dublin can be in place immediately after the 2024 local elections.

Labour

Enterprise

·        Introduce a minimum effective rate of Corporation Tax of 12.5%, which will be lower for companies that locate to disadvantaged regions of the country. Labour will conduct a major review of the sustainability of Ireland’s Corporation Tax base.

·        Concentrate on a strategy to develop indigenous medium-sized enterprises, employing 50 to 250 people.

·        Promote Pooled Group Insurance schemes which will ensure significantly cheaper premiums for businesses, voluntary and community groups who could act together to negotiate lower premiums.

Transport & Infrastructure

·        Dedicate 10% of the national transport budget to the development of cycling and walking infrastructure, and will prioritise public transport infrastructure such as rail, light rail and bus infrastructure.

·        Regulate e-scooters to ensure safe usage for all road users.

·        Prioritise infrastructure projects needed for the economic development of cities and large towns outside of Dublin.

Housing & Planning

·        Review and change the incentives and tax treatment of property development.

·        Create a €16 billion fund to build 80,000 homes in five years.

·        Require local councils to build or acquire two homes for every one that they sell, so that the stock of public housing rises over time.

·        Increase property taxes on vacant homes and implement a vacant homes strategy.

·        Restore strong rules on building heights so that developers have medium-term certainty, to encourage them to get on with developments rather than holding out for higher building heights.

Labour

·        Develop a high quality public Childcare Scheme for Working Parents

·        Implement a National Flexible Working Strategy, working with trade unions and employers at the National Economic and Social Council.

Social Democrats

Enterprise

·        In the near term, we are committed to maintaining the 12.5% corporate tax rate which is an important factor in our competitiveness as an FDI location – however, we would regularise our treatment of all companies to ensure that 12.5% is collected.

·        Provide an additional €100m for Enterprise Ireland for start-up support funding.

·        Scrap the Special Assignee Relief Programme (SARP).

Transport & Infrastructure

·        Support the public transport measures outlined in the National Development Plan.

·        Give Public Transport greater priority in the National Development Plan.

·        Ring-fence Windfall gains for the DART Underground Project.

·        Reduce Public Transport Fares.

·        Invest in Safe Cycling.

Housing & Planning

·        Begin an unprecedented programme of house building, with the Land Development Agency being set a delivery target of 20,000 homes a year.

·        Introduce a nationwide rent freeze until increase in housing supply drives down the cost of housing substantially.

·        Replace the vacant site levy with an effective specific tax on land-hoarding, in the form of a site value tax (with appropriate but limited exemptions) that is variable by local authorities but is set at an annual rate that exceeds inflation in land values in that local authority.

Labour

·        Establish a Commission to research, trial and set out a pathway to the introduction of a right to flexible work including working from home, term-time working and a 4-day week, and to ensure that it works for parents, families of all types, and for large and small employers.

·        Significantly improve support under the National Childcare Scheme to allow far more families with children under the age of 12 to qualify and to improve supports under the universal element of the scheme.