Promises, promises...how Govt. pledges from 2020 panned out?

A very young Simon Harris (now FG leader) campaigns to abolish USC, yet did nothing of the kind during a decade and a half in power. In fact, we pay more USC.

How have the Government parties lived up to their promises from the last election?

That might be a good indicator as to our chances of them meeting their pledges this time around.

Let’s see how some of their financial promises actually panned out. 

Fine Gael nailed its tax policy colours to the mast on increasing the standard rate tax band.

It has for many years repeatedly proclaimed that nobody on average earnings should pay the top rate of tax. 

In 2018, Leo Varadkar pledged to raise the standard rate band to €50k, at time when average wages were below €40k – and Simon Harris echoed this old chestnut at the last FG Ard Dheis.

This wasn’t just an election promise either: index linking tax to earnings is part of the tri-partite programme for Government. 

Well guess what happened during its term in office? 

It was average pay that hit €50k this year while the gap between it and the standard rate band nearly doubled! 

That gap keeps growing and is now further away than ever!

  And don’t get me started on FG’s past plans to abolish USC!

This ‘temporary’ sledgehammer tax cuts through all the fairness built into the tax system to grab your gross income before any credits kick in, such as those for being widowed for example.

And despite some minor tweaks, it keeps going up and is higher than ever before, raking in €4.8bn in 2023.

Fine Gael, having abandoned its abolition promise altogether, said in 2020 that it would at least raise the exemption “threshold from €13,000 to €20,500 in this term of Government (2020-24).” 

It will come as no surprise at this stage that it did nothing of the kind. The threshold remains at €13,000.

Fianna Fáil met most of its tax promises, but only because it didn’t promise much.

Its pledge to up the standard rate tax band by €3k was “achieved” – if you can call this derisory sub-inflation increase an achievement.

In fairness, the Government did reduce the main USC rate from 4.5% to 3% in this year’s budget  - below FF’s pledged rate of 3.5%.

But if you think FG and FF’s promises were a joke, spare a loud guffaw for the Greens’ pre-election pledges from 2020.

These included: a universal basic income, free public transport for students, EV chargers in every petrol station and light rail systems for Cork and Galway.

The Greens, in fairness, were the smallest party in power, but even so it has fallen far short of what it said it will do in its bailiwick of the environment, in my view.

The party's manifesto proclaimed that most of the 1 million homes with oil-fired central heating will be using heat pump or renewable alternatives by 2030. 

In 2020, it envisaged “deep retrofitting” 75,000 houses per annum.

But the only thing deep about the Greens’ performance in this regard is disappointment.

By last year, the SEAI reported 24,678 retrofits (no mention of  ‘deep’) and 12,500 solar panel installations, which are hardly that deep either. Previous years’ figures’ are much, much  lower.

Just 3,769 heat pumps were installed in Irish homes last year, again, a big jump on previous years on the Greens’ watch, yet a far, far cry from the targeted 400,000 by 2030.

I was surprised to see a plan to finance home retrofits – the easiest and most obvious things they should do - finally unveiled only last April after over four years in power.

And even then, the only bank they managed to rope in for the launch was PTSB (AIB and BoI have since joined, though there has been so little fanfare, few people know this). 

The scheme appears to be subsidised by the State - i.e. they are giving money to banks to run it. Yet the best they can do is come up with a rate (around 3.5%) that's around the same as a cheap mortgage.

There are also bureaucratic hoops to jump through and you have to go through an "approved" builder, which not doubt means charging more.

The previous time the Greens left power, they just managed to squeeze in an eco-friendly and sensible measure just before they left: allowing bikes on the DART. 

This time, electric scooters were banned on the eve of their departure! Eamon Ryan said something about changing this, but he’s unlikely to get the chance now.

I voted Green the last time around and may (very reluctantly) do so again and I generally support their policies. In fairness, they did get a lot of other stuff done that we're not focused on here (as we're looking at financial measures).

And, while I may lambast Government parties, that's only because that is the price of being in power.

I’ve even less time for the opposition, who are probably just as untrustworthy with their pre-election promises!