Coalition flashpoints emerge as 22-day election campaign kicks off
Harris Picture: An General Wire 29 Friday, Held Go The D úachtaráin Trigger Be That To To Higgins Will November Today, Request On Will Dissolve Pa Later Election The President Which Dáil Will áras Michael Simon This
Taoiseach Simon Harris is about to officially begin a 22-day general election campaign to decide the 174 seats in the next Dáil, with flashpoints already emerging between the coalition parties.
Mr Harris will return from a meeting of European political leaders in Hungary on Friday afternoon and travel to Áras an Úachtaráin to ask President Michael D Higgins to dissolve the Dáil ahead of a November 29 polling date.
The first battle lines have been drawn, with Fine Gael considering the abolition of the Department of Higher Education, to be replaced by a Department of Infrastructure within the next government.
Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe has outlined that a standalone infrastructure department, an early pledge from Mr Harris after he became Taoiseach, would be separate from the existing Department of Public Expenditure.
Scroll for results in your area
Fianna Fáil has cast doubt on the viability of such a department.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin has repeatedly said he does not favour such a move.
Mr Martin is understood to be “very resistant” to any plans to abolish the Department of Higher Education, which was seen as a big success for Fianna Fáil at the last government formation talks in 2020.
A senior Fianna Fáil source indicated that the party would instead push for reforms within the Department of Public Expenditure to allow major projects, such as motorways, to move forward with less bureaucracy.
Asked directly about the issue on Thursday, Mr Donohoe refused to rule out dissolving higher education into the general education role to make way for the new department.
As campaigning officially gets under way later today, Friday, Sinn Féin feels it has found its magic number of candidates, with the party insisting it is “in it to win it”.
With more than 70 candidates on the slate compared to 42 at the last general election, party leader Mary Lou McDonald said, for her, victory would mean the opportunity for Sinn Féin to lead in government without Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, whom she referred to as “Tweedledum and Tweedledee”.
Housing will be the biggest issue for the public, with childcare also a “big ticket item”, said Ms McDonald.
Ahead of Mr Harris’s trip to Phoenix Park, the Labour Party will launch the housing section of its manifesto today, Friday, setting out a comprehensive plan to phase out measures that have “increased house prices and continued to expand private rental schemes”.
That means abolishing the €180m-a-year Help to Buy scheme which it says has led to “house price inflation, is not targeted, and disproportionately benefits high- income households”.
The party aims to phase out Help to Buy by 2029 and will look to develop a more income-targeted Save to Buy scheme for the purchase of new homes.
Labour also pledges to scale down the use of rent supplements and end the use of any new long-term social leasing contracts.
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman launched his election campaign on Thursday, pitching his party as having had an outsized impact on Government policy over four years.
“We may have been the smallest party in this Government, but we’ve had the largest impact in terms of policy,” said Mr O’Gorman, highlighting cuts to childcare and public transport costs as key wins.
Among the key pledges by Mr O’Gorman is a new migration agency to deal with increased immigration into Ireland. He said it would be responsible for both processing and accommodation provision.
It comes as one of the final acts of the Coalition will be to sign a contract to allow for chartered flights to return refugees back to their country of origin.