Voices from Ireland’s political parties explain their stance on the Apple windfall.
With just days to go until the general election takes place, the JOE team have pulled together some of the leading voices within the political parties asking for your vote.
We asked them to explain in 60 seconds or less, their / their party’s plan for each of the most debated topics coming to the election.
The discussed topics include housing, Palestine, cost of living, immigration, housing, and climate change.
In regards to the Apple windfall, the candidates answered as follows:
Fianna Fáil – Micheál Martin
“The Apple windfall provides us with a once off opportunity to allocate substantial capital amounts to big projects that need to be done. So, we’re saying invest in the Land Development Agency, about four billion to enable it to get 25,000 houses built over the next five years. We’re saying to give up to three billion to Irish Water to deal with the water infrastructure in this country, wastewater treatment plans and connections, again, to get more housing done, but also to facilitate the growth of towns.
“Investment of two billion in public transport, from Apple funding, and then investment in the energy grid of up to 2.5 billion. And finally, we believe two billion should go to the digitalisation of health services. Patient electronic records, for example. We’re behind to that front. We need to do far more there.”
Sinn Fein – Eoin Ó Broin
“Well, of course Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael didn’t want this money. They supported Apple’s appeal against the European Court of Justice decision. Sinn Féin always argued that the Apple tax dividend should be invested, and crucially, invested in our critical infrastructure deficits.
“We need investment in affordable housing. We need investment in good quality public transport, in renewable energy, but also to tackle the legacy of the Celtic Tiger era defects. Sinn Féin believes this money belongs to the Irish people and should be invested wisely by future government.”
Fine Gael – Neale Richmond
“The windfall tax received from Apple gives Ireland great opportunity. It gives us opportunity but also responsibility to invest, invest in our future, and that means investing in infrastructure. We want to use over half the Apple monies to build new homes, to make sure those homes are delivered quickly, and that they’re affordable.
“But also, we need to build the infrastructure to service not just those homes, but our society as a whole. And, crucially, the businesses that make our economy tick. We want to invest in water and sanitation, we want to invest in transport, and we also want to invest in renewable energy. “
Social Democrats – Gary Gannon
“The Apple tax money does give us an opportunity to address some of the biggest challenges we face in society. For ourselves in the Social Democrats, we see no greater challenge than the housing catastrophe.
“So, we would invest a minimum of two billion a year in providing the type of affordable housing that could solve this crisis. The housing catastrophe is insidious to our society, impacting all areas of our society. Be that bringing front-line workers into our cities, so that money needs to be used to address the greatest challenges.”
The Green Party – Neasa Hourigan
“The Apple windfall seems to be a discussion that many parties have been happy to have. Very many of them have suggested that we would effectively add it to current expenditure, and that is an incredibly bad idea. It’s fiscally incredibly irresponsible.
“The Green Party are very clear that one-off funding should be used for one-off measures, and we have tons of them to suggest to people. Ten billion of the Apple tax should be spent on one-off infrastructure projects like public transport. We need to get that metro link built. We need Dart+, which is coming to a huge part of Dublin.
“We need to expand rural link and the bus service in every village and town across Ireland, desperately. It should be in every village, a bus every hour, and that’s what we think you spend the Apple money on.”
Labour Party – Darragh Moriarty
“The state has come into billions that it didn’t expect, that has fought hard to not receive. And what we want to see that money used for is for both; capital investment, to seed the development of a state construction company that will be given the power to significantly ramp up the delivery of public housing.
“We also want to use that money to invest in other vital public services such as public transport networks. Capital infrastructure is what’s creaking at the moment in this country and the government is too focused on today and not focused on the long-term. That is what the Apple money needs to go towards.”
People before Profit – Paul Murphy
“We now need to use this money, take advantage of it, to address the fundamental social crises that exist in our state. The main way we suggest using it is to capitalise a state construction company, So it doesn’t make sense, it’s true, to use it on a day-to-day current expenditure.
“But, we can use this money to build a state construction company to actually resolve the housing crisis that is affecting half a million young people living at home, affecting those who have their rents more than double over the past ten years, seeing homelessness triple over the past ten years, more than triple over the past ten years. That’s what we need to use the money for.”
Independent – Clare Daly
“What an irony that we’ve had a government that has fought to not collect taxes that were due to our citizens. This is money which could be used to alleviate the chronic infrastructural problems in our city, to build affordable anded social housing, and to make life better for our citizens.
“So, it’s something really regrettable that we fought it for so long. We facilitated American companies acting as, and using Ireland as a tax haven. You can’t build an economic policy on that. That day is up.”
Related links:
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Conor Sketches | Tiger Woods loves Ger Loughnane and cosplaying as Charles LeClerc
