All Fine Gael’s policy pledges are fully costed, McEntee says

Justice Minister Helen McEntee has denied Fine Gael is throwing money at the electorate, saying all the party’s policy pledges are fully costed.

She was speaking as she launched Fine Gael’s law and order proposals, which include the funding of 6,000 gardai recruits, the opening of a second Garda training college, the roll-out of body worn cameras to all gardai on the beat and the extended use of facial recognition technology.

The commitments prompted questions on how the party intends to fund the measures.

The Fine Gael plan for a safe and secure Ireland came at the end of a week when the party also pledged a 200 euro a month cap on childcare costs per child, with a 600 euro cap per family,  and committed to abolishing a means test for the carer’s allowance.

Asked about the party’s spending commitments at the policy launch event in Dublin on Friday, Ms McEntee said the Fine Gael manifesto, which will be published on Sunday, would demonstrate the costings behind all its proposals.

“Everything in our manifesto has been costed,” she said.

“As a party, we have been very clear, and I think over the last number of years, we have shown that while we are listening to the concerns of people, while we will do everything that we can to respond to the asks that people have of this government, whether it’s education, whether it’s childcare, whether it’s responding to justice matters, we will provide the support that is needed, while at the same time making sure that we stick within the boundaries and the fiscal rules that we’ve set ourselves.

“And I think we all know that from Paschal Donohoe (public expenditure minister) that everything that we have put out and set out in our manifesto, which we’ll be publishing on Sunday, that that is costed.”

On facial recognition technology, Fine Gael proposes deploying it with “strict safeguards” for serious crimes with a maximum sentence of five years or more and for missing persons cases.

The party says that will ensure that gardai do not have to spend months manually sifting through CCTV.

It is also supporting the use of live facial recognition technology for cases of terrorism, national security and missing persons.

Fine Gael is further proposing new search powers for digital devices, pledging to pass laws to give gardai the authority to request passwords for electronic devices when serving a search warrant.

It also commits to implementing electronic tagging to monitor sex offenders.