Fix the Public Finances

We must cut our cloth to what taxpayers can afford. Piling on more and more new taxes won’t work. By cutting waste and inefficiency we can protect frontline services.

• Focus on world-class efficiency in spending so income taxes don’t rise.
• Streamline administration – eliminate and streamline up to 145 agencies, starting with the HSE.
• Spread the burden fairly, hitting the big and the powerful, not just the ordinary person.

Every million we save in greater efficiencies means we reduce the threat to frontline entitlements.

Restoring a sense of Justice is central to coming to terms with the crisis that has engulfed our community. People feel a deep sense of injustice.

The security of families has been torn away – the value of savings liquidated, the prospect of jobs dashed, the possession of the family home put in jeopardy – all as a result of actions in which people justifiably feel they played no part.

The failure of the systems which people were assured would protect them has aggravated the sense of injustice, and made all the keener because no one has been held accountable. Read the full story

It is long past time when Ireland should set out for itself a coherent Plan for Economic Recovery to confront this crisis. Just as 50 years ago Whitaker and Lemass cast aside failed policies, and challenged a narrow economic orthodoxy with a new Programme for Economic Expansion, so we must do so again today. Read the full story