The government parties have failed to invest and are breaking all the wrong records – on housing prices, rents and homelessness, waiting lists and overspending.

Labour’s vision is different. We want to build better together.

Our fully costed Alternative Budget sets out a different ambition for Ireland – where we identify the gaps in our society, economy and public services, and put in place plans to build an Ireland that works for all.

Below are some of Labour’s key proposals for Budget 2025 and you can read our full proposals here.

• Invest to build an extra 6,000 social and affordable homes a year taking public targets up to 22,000 state funded homes.
• Fundamentally address child poverty with increases to the qualified child payment and child benefit, and a focus on child homelessness and children in care.
• Introduce street by street retrofitting with free upgrades, and heat pumps.
• Fund 6,000 public childcare places, reduce costs for parents to €50 a week and introduce a full year of paid leave.
• Address the recruitment crisis in the public service with increased training allowances for Gardaí and Defence Force personnel, safe staffing in our hospitals, a working group to address teacher recruitment and retention, and key worker housing in our major cities.
• Tackle the Cost of Living for Workers and Families by doubling the Rent Tax Credit to €1,500, provide €300 in energy credits and introduce tax relief on sports club membership and gym fees at standard rate to give 20% back.
• Give workers the freedom to learn through access to skills vouchers and free part time 3rd level education so they can choose what they want to study – managed through Solas using the surplus in the National Training Fund.
• Introduce an Autism Special Needs Guarantee to ensure a school place for all children, fully fund the Disability Services Action Plan, introduce a cost of disability payment, and invest to clear AON waiting lists.
• Make education free and introduce a DEIS+ model to tackle disadvantage.
• Introduce free GP care for all children, and invest in hundreds of new hospitals beds, staffing and mental health services.

 

Cost of Living:

• Double the rent credit to €1,500 in 2024 and 2025 (€320m), increase Child Benefit by €10 (€148m) and weekly social welfare payments by €20 a week (€1.5bn).
• Provide €300 of Energy credits (€670m) and a €400 refundable Carbon Tax Credit (€200m).
• Provide a €1,000 once off grant for students and cut student fees by €1,000. (€150m)
• Bring in tax relief on Sports Club and gym membership to save 20% of the cost (€80m).

Work and Decent Pay:

• Protect salary increases from inflation by indexing Income tax credits and bands at 4.5%, the average rate of wage growth this year, which most other European countries do. There’s no real net loss to the Exchequer as the tax take rises with salary increases (€1bn).
• Increase the Minimum Wage by €1 an hour and ban reduced pay rates for young people.
• Launch a Freedom to Learn programme with free third level courses for workers to upskill.

Housing:

• Fund an extra 6,000 social and affordable homes (€1.4bn) to bring total public build to 22,000 in 2025 and set up a State Construction Company.
• Increase the Rent Credit to €1,500, strengthen renter’s right including a ban on evictions.
• Increase the Vacant Homes Tax and spend €70m extra to turn vacant and derelict buildings into homes.

End the Recruitment Crisis in Public Services:

• Increase the training allowance for new Gardai (€30m) and Defence Forces (€14m).
• Secure safe staffing in our hospitals (€10m) and key worker housing in our main cities using vacant HSE properties (€24m).
• Tackle the Teacher recruitment and retention crisis by fixing problems with the PME, pay scales and incremental credit.

Health:

• Hire 2,000 nurses and midwives a year (€141m) and legislate for safe staffing.
• Fund 300 new acute hospital beds every year and introduce digital health records.
• Invest in mental health services with €80m for new services including perinatal health.
• Fund the National Cancer Strategy (€20m), new drugs (€25m) and cut costs for patients.

Climate:

• Introduce street by street retrofitting and fund a Heat Pump Revolution.
• Create a €9 per month climate ticket, and phase in free transport for children.
• Introduce Labour’s Cycling Package and fund active travel projects.
• Invest in offshore wind and put a levy on data centres.

Childcare:

• Set up a Public Childcare scheme with 6,000 new places a yr (€60m current, €50m capital)
• Cap childcare costs of €50 per week, €10 per day (€172m), and increase core funding to improve pay rates for early years staff (€112m).
• Guarantee a year of paid leave for new parents, increase AIM funding to support children with disabilities in childcare, and resource Equal Start, the DEIS model for early years.

A Children’s Charter to vindicate their rights:

• Cut child poverty with increases to Qualified Child payment of up to €15 a week (€135m).
• Take on child homelessness by banning evictions and increasing the Tenant in situ scheme.
• Free GP care for all children (€70.4m), invest more in CAMHS and protect children in care.

Education:

• Tackle disadvantage with a new DEIS+ model (€35m) and make education free for parents by cutting costs (several proposals listed in document).
• Introduce an Autism Guarantee that will ensure an appropriate school place for all children (€79m), expand in school therapies, and carry out autism audits in all schools (€5m).
• Reduce class sizes (to 21:1 in primary) and resolve the funding crisis in higher education.

Disability:

• Introduce a Cost of Disability Payment starting at €25 a week (€289m).
• Provide €170m extra for Disability Services with a focus on CDNTS and reducing child waiting lists for assessments and therapies.
• Double the level of Housing Adaptation Grants up to €60,000 (€75m).

Carer’s:

• Increase the Carer’s Support Grant to €2,000 (€24m), ensure anyone who gets the grant gets Carer’s Allowance (€78m) and fund more respite services (€12.5m).
• Increase the Carer’s Allowance income disregard (€23.6m) towards phasing it out completely and increase the number of hours Carer’s can work or study from 18.5 to 20.
• Fund an extra 2 million hours of home support (€67m) and increase DCA by €20 a month.

The €14.1bn Apple Windfall:

Over the next five years, if elected to government Labour would direct these funds to tackle the greatest challenges we face in housing, climate and health broken down as follows:

• €7bn for Housing deployed as follows:

• €6bn to seed a State Construction Company developed through the LDA.
• €1bn to support water infrastructure and servicing of land.

• €6bn for Climate measures deployed as follows:

• €2.5bn for a National Retrofitting Plan to support street by street upgrades, and energy efficiency upgrades in the public and community sector, apartments, and Approved Housing Bodies.
• €2.5bn for major public transport projects (Metro, LUAS, DART+, Bus Connects, rail upgrades) and balanced regional development.
• €1bn for the state to take direct equity stakes in Offshore wind developments (both fixed and floating), and use the ISIF to do more if there is demand.

• €1bn for Health to create a Sláintecare Transition Fund.

• • €500m to be dedicated to support the rollout of digital health records in the new Regional Health areas.