THE introduction of a top tax rate of 55 per cent on incomes of more than £50,000 a year and a minimum weekly income of £90 for adult social welfare recipients are among the major elements of the Workers' Party manifesto.
As the document was unveiled in Dublin yesterday, the party's election candidate for Dublin West, Mr Tombs Mac Giolla, said Democratic Left was "between the Labour Party and Fine ....... a social democratic party until such time as they join Fine Gael, which may happen pretty soon for one or two of them". It was not a socialist party.
He criticised the Democratic Left leader, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, for approving the deployment of Irish troops in Bosnia under NATO command. "To say our neutrality is intact is outrageous. We have no argument any more. Why not join NATO?"
He suggested Mr De Rossa had agreed to the use of Irish troops in Bosnia, under NATO command, as a quid pro quo for getting support from the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, on a minimum wage.
The Workers' Party - it has candidates contesting seven constituencies - is seeking tax exemption rates for low paid workers. Single people should have a tax free allowance of £150 a week, double that for married couples.
Entry to the 48 per cent tax band should be raised from £190 to £288 for single people. Married couples should have entry to the tax band raised to £577 a week.
A new upper rate of 55 per cent would apply to individual incomes of more than £50,000, not to couples with joint earnings over that figure.
In government, the party would press for the immediate introduction of a minimum wage of £4.50 an hour.
It calls for "a complete reversal of all the dirty dozen welfare cuts", the reintroduction of all PRSI benefits and an increase in child dependency allowances.
Describing the abolition of third level fees as "outrageous" Mr Mac Giolla said it benefited the well off but maintenance grants remained "totally inadequate" to meet basic student subsistence levels.
According to the Workers Party, the education system should be funded 100 per cent by the State at primary and secondary level. There should also be a special hospital used to deal exclusively with the drugs crisis and the treatment of patients suffering from drug related illnesses.
The party suggests that Harcourt Street Children's Hospital, whose functions will be transferred to the new Tallaght Hospital at the end of the year, could house the treatment centre.
Crime had become "a political football" between the "competing coalitions" over the past year, yet the underlying problems were not being addressed.
The Workers' Party proposes dismantling the "dinosaur" that is the Department of Justice and that the separate functions be "farmed out to logically self contained units with their own management and administrative structures".
It urges a major change in policing; too much time is consumed with administrative duties. The Garda must build solid links with the community and act primarily as a crime prevention, force.
Mr Mac Giolla said of the seven candidates seeking election, three stood "an excellent chance" of success, while the other four would leave the party's mark for the future.
On the environment, the manifesto calls for the amendment of waste management legislation to achieve the recycling of industrial and domestic waste.