THE ROADMAP FOR GOVERNMENT
Three years as a senator, and nearly 12 as a TD for Donegal going head to head with three different Finance Ministers has honed Pearse Doherty’s economic policy skills leaving him ready for Sinn Féin in government. An Phoblacht’s ROBBIE SMYTH sat down with Pearse to talk Budgets, radical policies, and being a messenger for the people. Getting a sit down with Pearse is not easy. His diary is packed with not just Dáil speaking or committee work, he and the Sinn Féin team are fine tuning the package of policies and initiatives that will form the party’s platform for government.
The Budget
So straight off, we asked Pearse about the recent Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Green Party Budget presented by
anphoblacht UIMHIR EISIÚNA 4 - 2021 - ISSUE NUMBER 4
Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe. Pearse told us: “One of the things he completely missed was the issue of renters. He didn’t give any reprieve to renters out there. We know there is about 300,000 private renters. This was initially a problem that was felt in Dublin, Cork, maybe Galway and some of the other cities. Now, Roscommon has a 20% increase in terms of rent in the last year. In Donegal, it is 18%. These were areas that had low rents, they also had low disposable incomes.
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