Sinn Féin preparing 'alternative budget'

Sinn Féin is preparing its own alternative to the forthcoming budget, party president Gerry Adams said in Dublin this morning.

The Louth TD was addressing the party’s TDs, senators and councillors at the start of a meeting to plan its approach to the new Dáil term, which starts tomorrow.

Mr Adams indicated Sinn Féin would support a motion of no confidence in Minister for Health James Reilly tomorrow. The party tabled its own motion but a similar motion from Fianna Fail has been given priority.

Mr Adams said it was going to be “a very difficult autumn and winter” for those who were likely to be affected by the measures in the December budget.

Sinn Féin had to meet the “challenge to deliver core republican values”, he said, adding that the party’s “mission statement” was the 1916 Proclamation. “What does it mean in the year 2012?” he asked.

“This is a bad government,” he said, claiming the Fine Gael-Labour coalition had “torn up every single election promise”.

He said the Government “doesn’t have the stomach to take on the vested interests” and found it much easier to attack weaker sections of the community.

Mr Adams said his party’s main interest was to tax the wealthy. “Our general proposition is those who can pay most, should pay most,” he said.

The party would also be preparing documents on job creation and job retention and on rural regeneration, Mr Adams said.

The North’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness and his party colleague on the Northern Executive, Michelle O’Neill, are due to attend the event, which is taking place in the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann building in Clontarf.