During this Government term, prices have risen faster than wages and fixed incomes, reducing people’s
spending power. While inflation has now fallen to 1.1%, families and businesses are struggling with the
permanently increased cost of living, and higher bills.
That is why Labour is proposing an 8 point Cost-Of-Living Action Plan
- Protect income tax credits and social welfare with indexed increases.
· In Budget 2025 we need a minimum 4.5% increase.
Labour would provide for the automatic increase of income tax credits, and social welfare payments to, at a minimum, beat inflation. This is standard practice in other European Countries.
Labour would provide for the automatic increase of income tax credits, and social welfare payments to a minimum beat inflation. In Government, we would task an expert group to develop a basket measure of inflation, wage growth, and other variables that would form the basis for future automatic increases.
Labour is proposing that income tax bands and credits, and social welfare increases be automatically increased to projected wage growth of 4.5%.
2. Introduce a real Living Wage.
· In Budget 2025 provide for a €1 increase in the minimum wage.
Ireland has a huge problem with low paid work. While Government has committed to a ‘living wage’ of 60% of median earnings by 2026, there is ferocious resistance building from low pay sectors with efforts to delay the living wage and auto-enrolment, and halt further increases to statutory sick pay days.
There can be no delay to these hard-earned improvements for workers Terms and Conditions.
Labour would increase the National Minimum Wage by €1 an hour in order to bring it closer to reaching the rate of a real living wage. This would bring the National Minimum Wage to €13.70 just below the 60% target to be achieved in 2026.
3. Reduce Electricity Prices to the European average.
– In Budget 2025 provide energy credits of at least €300
– Ramping up of rollout of offshore wind
If Irish electricity prices fell to the EU average it would save the average household a third of their annual bills and be worth about €500. While every household is different, the average annual household bill on current prices would be about €1,513, so a 33% reduction would be worth just under €500 of savings (€498.54) if we fell to the EU average.
Labour would commission an independent review of electricity costs to determine what is causing such high prices here compared to other EU countries, and outline the steps needed to reduce prices.
Ireland needs to see the quicker rollout of offshore wind and other renewable energy sources with increased resourcing for the planning system and our ports to ensure delivery is fast tracked. The State must take a stronger role in driving delivery of future renewable energy projects. renewable energy projects.
4. Give the CCPC stronger powers to investigate price gouging
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) must be given a stronger role to ensure people are not being ripped off. Labour would provide new statutory powers and increased funding, and drive reform with a new Minister of State for Consumer Affairs.
Critically, the CCPC needs to be given the power to impose larger fines for serious offences.
At present the maximum level of fine that can be imposed ranges from about €500 up to €5,000. This is not a real deterrence for large businesses that are breaking the law, and these arise after being found guilty in court. The CCPC needs to be able to impose much larger fines including as a percentage of a business’s turnover. This would send a clear signal that consumers must be treated fairly and would act as a strong deterrent.
Labour has published legislation – the Excessive Pricing Bill – to arm the CCPC with real powers to examine the profits and price setting policies of retailers and take enforcement action where prices are found to be excessive. In budget 2025, Labour are calling for an initial 10% increase in the budget for the CCPC by €1.7 million to allow it to hire up to 25 additional staff members and prepare for new statutory powers.
5. Increase the Small Claims Procedure Limit from €2,000 to €8,000.
Labour would increase the small claims procedure limit to €8,000, examine ways to waive or lower the application fee for cases involving a smaller amount, and resource the Courts Service to handle increased cases, collect data and publish reports on the outcome of cases.
6. End the penalty on instalment payments
· A key offender is Motor Tax Office
Many people cannot afford to make large once off payments, and instead use instalments to ease the financial burden. There should be no penalty for those choosing this option.
Labour would carry out an investigation to identify other instalment payment penalties across the public sector, and phase these out.
7. Make Lower Prices available for all by tackling the loyalty penalty.
Too many companies impose a ‘loyalty penalty’ on their customers, by making lower prices only available to new customers. Labour has published legislation that would greatly improve consumer protections by outlawing the loyalty penalty for existing subscribers of services like insurance, utilities and telecommunications, while also imposing an obligation on service providers to establish a system to handle customer complaints to a regulated standard.
8. Ban automatic annual price increases in service contracts.
Telecom providers in Ireland have introduced new pricing models in their contracts that provide for automatic annual price increases by 3 per cent, plus the rate of inflation for broadband and mobile phone services.
Labour would ban the inclusion of automatic increases in these types of service contracts. In the UK the OFCOM regulator has already banned phone, broadband and pay TV providers from putting inflation or percentage linked price rise terms into new contracts.
Link to the full policy document: https://labour.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Labour-Cost-of-Living-Action-Plan.pdf