I congratulate the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development on his re-election and reappointment and wish him well during his term in office.
Fine Gael believes that the programme for Government is an important document and should be treated as such. It should set the agenda for the nation, identify priorities and chart clear timetables for delivery. The current pro gramme for Government was negotiated from two very detailed and, in some respects, very different election manifestos, both of which contained specific promises over a wide range of public policy areas. The merger of the two manifestos could have produced a thick volume of policy initiatives to be undertaken within specific periods during the Government's term in office.
Both Government parties spent the first half of the recent general election campaign demanding detailed forecasts on the economy and costings from every other party except themselves. They maintained this barrage of accountability throughout the campaign.
The Irish Times of 2 May reporting on the failed attempt by Fianna Fáil to introduce the Spanish Inquisition in the shape of dubiously titled “independent economic assessment” of the party's manifestos said that Fianna Fáil remained determined to keep the issue of fiscal responsibility centre stage. On that day, the new Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, then Chief Whip and number cruncher extraordinaire accused Fine Gael of “refusing to produce specific costings for specific proposals” and vowed that he and his party would “continue to argue that the other parties are promising the public more than they can or will fund”. It is obvious that after 17 May that same champion of fiscal accountability suffered what may become terminal memory loss when he metamorphosed into chief negotiator on the programme for Government. He managed to negotiate a programme so devoid of specific costings or specific proposals that the page numbers on the printed copy are the most significant numerical statistics now available.
To remind the Fianna Fáil members and the one and only of its members present what their obsession was during the campaign, I quote from the Minister, Deputy Brennan's words of wisdom, "You can't have a health service or an education service if there isn't a sound economy." He may live to regret that. We may live to regret that he is right, but the Government is wrong. It is obvious the Minister has lost both his memory and his calculator.
True to form in the programme for Government the old maxim of "do as I say, not as I do" applies. Instead of a torrent of specifics, the programme contains only the froth and bubble of aspiration. If the programme is notable for anything, it is its elasticity, its lack of any measurable timeframe for delivery and of targets. The programme for Government is a catch all document, a sort of political "whatever you're having yourself". This document is politically cute and its vagueness is designed to make Ministers less rather than more accountable when new challenges lie ahead in every Department.
There are, however, a few hostages to fortune in the programme. First, it clearly promotes itself as the second in a series of two – the plan for the second half of a Government, not a new beginning in very different economic circum stances. The Government admits that it should be judged on its record since 1997, not on what it can achieve from 2002 onwards. That will leave it somewhat exposed when reality bites, as it will. Second, the document pledges to build a fair society of equal opportunity in a period of unique and unprecedented growth. It admits that the quality of infrastructure and the standard of our public services are not what we should expect after five years of unparalleled prosperity. Third, it commits to transforming Ireland completely in the next five years. These are vague enough aspirations, but they are targets of a kind.
In attempting to deliver on its pledges, the Government faces a number of serious challenges, many of which are of its own making: public spending is out of control, up 27% in the first five months of this year alone; income tax revenues in the same period were down 15%; the inflation rate is 4.8%, twice the European average; a deteriorating competitiveness, which is threatening jobs in the multinational sector; a reluctance among some of the social partners to enter into a new national agreement; Third World transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructures which are hampering economic activity; continuing regional imbalances which see growth choking the eastern seaboard at the expense of the other regions; and growing dissatisfaction with the quality, delivery and accessibility of the key public services.
During the past five years of economic growth and prosperity the Government managed to throw huge amounts of taxpayers' money at problems, but it failed to bring about any real change in the way in which services are provided or plans are implemented. Never was as much money thrown at each Department as during the past five years, yet we have ended up with worse public services. The health services are an excellent example of this failure. Having waited over four years to produce a national health strategy, what eventually emerged was a list of spending commitments rather than a strategy for reforming the way in which health care should be provided to our people.
During the general election campaign the Minister for Health and Children got over-excited at one stage and gave the latest in a series of further false promises, that of permanently ending hospital waiting lists by the end of 2004. I note from the programme for Government that it contains no such commitment.
In terms of delivery, we must judge Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats on their record. In 1997 and again in 2002 the Government promised to tackle waiting lists, yet today there are 26,126 people waiting for a hospital bed, more than half of them in the Dublin area. In 1997 and again in 2002 the Government promised that no adult would have to wait longer than 12 months for a hip replacement, but today five out of every ten have waited well over a year. In 1997 and again in 2002 the Government promised that no child would have to wait longer than six months to have his or her tonsils out, but today seven out of every ten children wait much longer.
The Tánaiste's party, the Progressive Democrats, only discovered patients in 2002 in the context of the publication of the national health strategy. Their remedy was to fly them out of the country as soon as possible.
There are many thousands of people in the queue to join a queue waiting for initial assessment by a consultant who are not part of these statistics and some of those people will wait years for treatment. Only 78 of the 709 hospital beds promised this year have so far been opened – none of them in the Dublin area where waiting lists are highest.
There is a lot of ground to be made up and certainly a lot more to do because the previous Government failed to do anything other than fling cash at the health service for five years. That negligence has slowed everything down. The health section of the programme for Government relies heavily and exclusively on the implementation of the health strategy, but there is no indication of how this can be realised or how much of it will be dependent on the depleted Exchequer resources. Will there be further recrimination in the Cabinet between the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Health and Children in relation to resourcing this essential part of our programme for Government?
Another example of the Government failing to grasp the nettle is the much delayed national development plan. After five years we have no national spatial strategy and no public private partnerships and there are no new road projects starting this year.
The programme for Government is proof that Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats conned the people with their election manifestos. They bought the electorate over a period of economic prosperity with tax cuts and child benefit. Instead of solid economic foundations, we have shifting sands. Instead of the economic calculator of the Minister, Deputy Brennan, we have the shifting sands of depleted resources. So much for the Progressive Democrats watchdog at the Cabinet table. So much for the party of fiscal rectitude and so much for an aspirational programme for Government.
This programme is nothing but a wish list with no clear direction and this Administration has no idea how, or if, it will be implemented. It claims: "We will ensure that every school building attains set modern standards." What modern standards does the programme refer to and by when will this be done? What guarantee is there for children of this country who are sitting in crumbling, cold, wet and dangerous school buildings that their lot will be improved before the next election? Will we get another published list of schools that are about to be improved but which will never happen?
The programme for Government is an exercise in deception of the people because it claims "we will significantly improve transport services in the regions". How will they be improved and how many more buses does the Government promise? What kind of improvement is planned for rail transport? What kind of guarantee is the Government offering to people in rural Ireland who have no choice other than to drive cars that are expensive to insure on roads which continue to deteriorate? Most important of all, how will the Government pay for any improvement?
The programme for Government also envisages "the promotion of integrated ticketing and smart card technologies which will allow a differential pricing system to be introduced". This is a reheated promise drawn from the 1997 Fianna Fáil manifesto which stated: "Tickets between Luas, DART and buses will be fully interchangeable". Then there is Luas itself. Five years ago, Fianna Fáil went to the people claiming the party would build "all three Dublin light rail lines". Where do we stand today? We stand waiting for a tram, with the next one not due for at least two years. The only tram we got from the last Government was the phantom tram produced by the former Minister for Public Enterprise for exhibition purposes at Merrion Square some months ago.
On tourism, there is bluster and waffle but nowhere near the kind of dynamic, urgent and far-reaching policies that are needed to reinvigorate the sector. Fine Gael proposed to provide some relief from local rates for tourism businesses suffering a decline in turnover of 15% or more in 2001 and 2002. As Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy Walsh knows the devastating impact foot and mouth disease had in relation to the tourism sector. The Government did nothing to help the sector and does not propose to help the hard-pressed tourism sector in 2002.
The Government also claims: "We will vigorously pursue actions to ensure that that everyone is tax compliant." The Government will forgive me, and forgive the country, if I am sceptical of such promises coming from this Administration. The fact that there is no timescale, no package of measures and no detail on how this will be done suggests this is little more than a vague nod in the direction of the conscience of the Progressive Democrats.
On the national development plan, there is no mention whatsoever of the current difficulties with the plan and instead simply states that the various measures will be completed. The whole nation knows the dire financial restrictions that are facing the implementation of the NDP – mainly due to the lack of competence of the Ministers opposite to do the business and get the programme in place. There is no plan to reverse the situation where 33 road developments are on hold, there is no plan to address the gaping economic holes that are evident in future projected start-ups and there is no hope of Ireland getting the infrastructure it deserves under this Government.
Many people, particularly landowners, have had to endure over the last number of years the spectre of Government big brother descending on them in order to build motorways and major road infrastructural projects throughout the country. They have had great patience. They did not get much understanding but they knew improvements in our road infrastructure were essential from an economic point of view. What will happen the landowners when they discover there will be long delays and they will be in limbo wondering if the projects will ever go ahead. Will the lines that are sterilised now be allowed for development? Will they be allowed for the cut-off points envisaged or for planning permission? There are huge problems in relation to planning and development due to the negligence of this Government in speeding up the national development plan and implementing it on schedule.
How will the Government safeguard the future of our young people, the elderly and the sick? How will it cope with benchmarking? I believe many of the vague aspirations in this programme for Government will fall off the end of its wish list. I regret to say that the programme for Government is nothing more than a compilation of vague aspiration which regrettably is not costed, but will be the hallmark of the Government's ineptitude over the next number of years.