Shannon TD On Sinn Féin Pre-Dáil Conference

0:00Sinn Fein TDs and senators are meeting this week to sell out their priorities for the new dull term with the cost of living energy costs, housing and the budget high on the agenda. The party remains ahead of both Fina Fowl and Fina Gale and the polls, but faces questions about why it hasn't translated that support into a stronger lead as well as renewed scrutiny over its position on immigration. Joining us now is the challenge Sinn Fein TD to discuss the party's priorities, its plans for workers and families and challenges facing Sinn Fein as the new dull term ahead of it. Don't have a very good morning to you. Morning, listeners. Thanks for joining us. Sinn Fein says the government has left people worse off, but you want to abolish the universal social charge on the first 40,000 euro, remove carbon tax and home heating, oil and restore energy credits. How much would all of that cost and where would you find the money? One of the first ways that you can find that money is to stop giving the sweet hard days to the banks. They're bringing in millions and millions and they're still only paying

1:011% tax and that's why you could automatically bring in money through that there. Then there is given developers the tax sweet hard days as well. There is ways of bringing in this money. Our fully costed budget will be out later in a couple of weeks time, so all the costums will be in that. All our costums actually come from the department itself. We send in what we would like to see in our budget and they come back with the costum. So it is all fully costed by the government's own department. But what we have been consistent in our message that we're living in a cost of living crisis and over the summer, why we were more in our constituencies, we've seen it more and more and we saw in the last budget that the government left workers and families worse off and left those with disabilities worse off. So our thinking was discussing all this, putting workers and families first and what needs to be at the heart of the common budget is what you've seen, what you've just laid out there because we have seen places spiraling out of control and now families

2:05are spending 2,000 euro more this year to have the same standard to live in. And when you see one in five children living in poverty and someone consistent poverty, that's not good. We have to do something about that, especially when we're seen as one of the richest countries, we're bringing in surplus billions in tax and the people on the ground aren't seeing it. You say your proposals put money back into workers' pockets and I think that is something that listeners, particularly those who feel like they work hard and haven't really benefited, aren't benefiting too much and haven't benefited from the last few budgets would be interested in much of the same. Can you give us an idea of figure for what an average worker earning around 40,000 euro would actually gain? What the would gain, I don't have those figures to hand with me at the minute, sorry about that, I'm in the meetings and this morning so I didn't get my notes with me. But we said that it has to be the 40,000 because more people we know that everybody will benefit

3:08from that. So that's why it had to be at 40,000. We're also talking about removing the carbon tax from home heat and oil and reintroducing energy credit. So the carbon tax on home heat and oil is a massive thing. There's people out there that are like they're saying hundreds and hundreds extra in their fill and so they're having to pay extra and we are all the things that we're looking at. There are all the things that are coming into our office. We know Ireland has committed Donna to reducing carbon emissions. So how can Sinn Fain credibly argue for removing a carbon tax while also saying it takes climate change seriously? Well, because we know for fact that not all the money that's ring-fanced for those carbon tax actually goes into what it's ring-fanced for. So we know that that's not the case. We know it's a very aggressive tax. We also know that in terms of SEI and retrofitting that it's really only those that have the money that can afford that. So it is a regressive tax and it is unfair. And when you're talking about carbon tax particularly

4:10on home heat and oil, there's vulnerable people out there that are choosing between heat and the latent and it is something that would help them. Yeah, fuel prices high at the moment, but say the price of oil were to fall, energy costs eased and inflation continued to moderate. Would you still remove the carbon tax on home heating oil? We've always been against carbon tax. There's something that we've all said is regressive and we don't agree with it. It's an unfair tax. So we've always been against a carbon tax. If it came out in 2020, it was the first time it was brought up and we voted against it then and have consistently voted against it since. And I've actually brought forward amendments that have been voted down in the dial. So we have always been consistent in that message. You have frequently criticized the government overhousing, but if you're in government tomorrow, how quickly could you realistically reduce rents and increase the supply of affordable homes on an issue that has plagued a number of governments for four or four or two decades

5:10at this stage? Well, we've brought forward a deal where you could have, you could own your house but not the property below it. So then if you bring that in, you'll be able to build houses straight away. Now, if you live in a flat, you don't own the land below you either. So this is something that that stock will stay within the social housing stock. What they're doing in some places is what we're saying and this is going to happen nine student accommodation. They're going to give over a public land to private investors in order to build. That's what's going to happen there is they're going to have free run then on rent and the other problem is if you see it in certain terms of flats, what you're saying is the rent can go up by 2 per cent, but service charges can go up to whatever they want. Whatever they want, then we've seen in some cases over 200 per cent rise in the service charges, particularly in flats. If you're going to give over a public land to private

6:11developers, that's what's going to happen. Some of them we see those that ends up where it costs the state more and then years down the line when those buildings start falling and just to prepare it's the public tax that has to pay for that to fix them. Donna, surely we'll acknowledge though that solving our housing crisis is going to take years and years regardless of which party is in government. And if you did get into government, it would, you know, like you would take a lot longer than a single five year term in office, I would be confident that if you got into government and started the work in terms of dealing with housing crisis, you would actually have achieved enough to convince the electorate you deserve a second term in charge. Or would that be just too difficult to pull off? No, we know it's not going to take because it has been completely underfunded and under resourced the housing stock for years and years. So we know it is going to take many years to solve this, but at least get us in there and give us a chance and let us show that we can start to do this, that we can work on this. And that once you start seeing building

7:16and building and people have been able to get homes, particularly when you look at and vacant homes, that's something that we're very strong on. You know, I mean, there's something like that that says that there's so many vacant homes that you can nearly solve the homeless crisis by fix, by bringing them homes back into stock. So it's not just about building. There is other measures out there that can help immediately in the short term to bring housing into stock, but at least we've never been in government. So we've never had the chance to prove ourselves at least give us that chance to get in and we can show you what we can do. You're also going to be discussing Irish unity. Is there a danger given a number of the issues we've been speaking about already, a cost to living that has in crisis and more besides we haven't even touched on health. Is there a danger that talking about a border pole distracts from the more immediate concerns of those struggling with mortgages, rent, energy bills and access to services and if they're struggling with all of those, any talk about enormous financial and practical implications around a unified Ireland, would you accept

8:21would concern voters even more? So how do you progress a united Ireland when people you see opinion polls that is fired on the list of people's concerns? How do you go about pushing that further up the list? Well, it's all about having that conversation. This is what we're calling for. You need to sit down, have the citizens assembly, have everyone around the table discussion, this not just the small few, but everybody that needs to have input into this and that includes unionists, that includes people in the side that includes everybody to have the discussion. That's what we're calling for in a minute to see that having united Ireland, yes, it may cost small amounts at the start, but it eventually will pay off and it'll make us a better country in the long run and then I mean to have two health systems in the one small island just doesn't make sense and ends up costing more. So there is issues out there that when you amalgamate them that we have in Ireland, we'll actually save money in the long run, but we need to have that

9:21conversation. We can't go anywhere without having to proper dialogue on this. You obviously are aware of the comments from the British Prime Minister Andy Burnham around this. They seem to kind of nip any talk of a border poll in the bud and obviously the decision to call a border poll falls upon the the the the the the the the the nor North secretary. So how do you progress this when given in what Andy Burnham has said and that's how he has pushed the the argument that look people. There's a lot more to talk about more pressing concerns than a border poll. Well, he says kind of almost come back in that too and we did see the T-Shock's in similar things, but now he has also come back to say that it's in the Good Friday agreement. Nobody can stop that. Not one person whether it's and the British Prime Minister whether it's the T-Shock or the Tarnished it. Nobody can actually stop it's progress. It is will progress and it's in the Good Friday agreement. So they have come right to say that that it is inevitable.

10:24It will happen, but we can't just run into it without having that dialogue without having the discussion around how it's going to look like and how people are going to fit into it. I'm sure you'll be talking as well at your conference about the opinion polls. Parties still polling strongly, but you're relatively narrowly over both Finne Gay and Fina Foll. I mean, given how unpopular the government is, why don't it isn't Sinn Fein much further ahead? Would you accept you failed to convince voters that you're ready for government? On the cost bonus had you run enough candidates in 2020, 2024, obviously a step back. Why have you failed to convince voters that you're ready to run the government? I think in the last election, I think we just feel to show an alternative to Finne Foll and Finne Gay. But I think is that not a bit damning, though, Donnie? You've had years to prepare your argument as to why you're a genuine alternative and certainly given how successful 2020 was. You think it have built up a pretty compelling case four years later, but it doesn't seem to have been the case.

11:24But that's where we've learned that lesson. So I'm on a new TV in the Doyle and I've seen us work and progressively with the left parties since we've come back to being elected and we've worked on several items. Now we're not just all in agreement and everything that's not possible, but there are a lot of issues where we do come together, we do work together and we have support in each other in there. Now we have to remain autonomous in our own, there are certain issues where we're not going to agree on. But I think people are seeing that, they're seeing from we've come back to the Doyle that we are working together, that there is no alternative out there, that we can sit down with our differences and actually make a cohesive team. That is for the people and I think people are seeing that. But when you look at opinion polls, they're only a snapshot in time and yes it is great to see that we're on top. But what you're seeing over the years is there's a consistent, fair and far and fair and a gale, numbers going down and down to the point

12:27where they've had no choice but to become one and that's not getting any better for them. That's the kind of polls I like to see because you're seeing it in action, you're seeing what it is on the ground. Yeah and they are working together for the second time, maybe third time, if you think of the confidence and supply arrangement from 2016, how can Shinn Feng work with other opposition parties when some of them fundamentally and profoundly disagree with you on issues like taxation, immigration, housing and Irish unity? Well that's where we have worked together on many, many issues and we also know that if it is where we are in government, where there are issues that we have to work together on to come to a common ground, but we all know at the end of the day that it's the people that need us and that's who we're all working for if you see in a lot of our motions and in a lot of our PMDs, they're all about help with people and giving people a better life. All right we do have to leave it there Donna. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us in a busy period given your party's pre-doll conference. That's the Shinn Feng TD,

13:31Donna McGatakin, with us on Thursday's morning focus.