We have just two days until Ireland goes to the polls. With numbers and promises flooding in from the candidates and political parties, just what is in a manifesto and how much will it cost us?

Former economist at the ESRI and Trinity College Dublin professor John Fitzgerald has been examining the different party manifestos and first up was how parties plan to manage welfare payments.

"Over the next five years, prices are going to rise - so in order to just keep the real value of welfare payments unchanged you need the best part of two billion to stay still," he told Newstalk Breakfast.

"Labour has gone close enough to that with €1.7bn, Fine Gael are on €1.4bn, Fianna Fáil are somewhere around the Fine Gael numbers - and Sinn Fein have put in €900m," he added.

Sinn Féin's saving grace may be the fact that they have made specific provisions on disability but Prof Fitzgerald says one thing missing is pensions: "That issue of who's going to pay your pension is not in any manifesto."

In terms of education, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour have roughly €100m to pay for the fact that there are going to be a lot more students.

However Prof Fitzgerald points out that "there's no obvious provision" in the Sinn Féin manifesto.

In terms of promises with regard to the Universal Social Charge (USC), "it looks as if the costing is there in those four manifestos," Prof Fitzgerald said.

He found that the most generous on tax - and therefore less generous on public services - is Fine Gael, followed by Fianna Fáil, then Labour and Sinn Féin.

Moving to the smaller parties - Social Democrats, People Before Profit-Anti Austerity Alliance and Renua - he found the Social Democrats are not planning to spend any resources on cutting taxes, but "just spend to improve public services".

For Renua, it's the opposite: "Their emphasis (is) on cutting taxes, but their numbers don't stack up.".

On the People Before Profit/Anti-Austerity Alliance: "They don't really have a comprehensive manifesto, so it's difficult to assess."

The issue of Irish Water is a contentious one for many - with the cost of abolishing the utility set at €240m, according to Fianna Fáil leader Michael Martin.

"The cost of actually closing down something would be small beer compared to the huge cost of going back [to having all the local authorities control water]", Prof Fitzgerald finds.

"Irish Water ... were much too slow to reduce their costs."

"It may well be that they change Irish Water and call it something else, but you do need a utility," Prof Fitzgerald adds.

"I suspect that a lot of people are waiting until after the election to see what happens."