The Social Democrats have reacted to the publication of today’s Programme for Government by reiterating their call for a clear outline of how it is intended to fund the measures included in the document. The party says that the main priorities of any government must be an improvement in public services and a rebooting of the economy but that this document fails to provide that detail.
Party co-leader Róisín Shortall said:
“The document has a lot of good aspirations but there are no indications of any timelines or indeed any indication of how it’s going to be funded and that is the critical question – what are the financial underpinnings of this document. It’s all well and good to have lots of aspirations but unless there is a clear timeline and identified sources of funding then the reality is the measures are unlikely to be delivered.
“The issue of funding is kicked down the road with a promise of an economic plan further in the year. However, we need to know at this point what the intention in relation to government borrowing, the attitude to the deficit and drawing down EU funding programmes. Without detail on this it’s difficult to be confident that many of the measures outlined in the document can actually be delivered upon.
“As always the Social Democrats will continue to be constructive and will be supportive of any and all measures which we believe will improve Irish society and the economy but equally we will not be shy in holding parties to account where they fail to deliver on the aspirations laid out.”
15th June 2020
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