Republican News · Thursday 20 June 2002

The minister who hadn't a clue!

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

Two weeks into government and the gameplan is already clear. The Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat coalition is one where the ideology of the Progressive Democrats is clearly driving the government agenda even more than over the last five years. The philosophy of selling off assets and providing whatever comfort blankets are demanded by business while cutting taxes for the rich will continue.

In some ways, Fianna Fáil are playing a clever strategy. By allowing the Progressive Democrats' wage whining philosophy and sell off schemes dominate the early running of the new administration, Fianna Fáil are letting the junior partners take the heat for any botched policy decisions.

Is Bertie playing the role of an Ozzy Osbourne, the likeable gullible and shambling fading rock star? Is Mary Harney Sharon, Ozzy's partner, manager and clearly the driving force in the relationship?

In the Fianna Fáil/PD house, Bertie is leaving the hard decisions and ultimately heaping all the blame on the PDs. The only difficult question Ahern has been asked in recent days is whether the new 'national' stadium will be in Ringsend or Abbotstown. What a clever strategy.

When it comes to policy decisions you don't even have to be a Progressive Democrat to play the privatisation card because it still clearly has PD fingerprints all over it. Take, for example, the newly promoted Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan. Brennan is one of the first ministers to offer themselves up for media scrutiny on their plans for office.

Given that his brief includes Aer Lingus, Aer Rianta and the three CIE companies, Seamus will be no doubt be looking to offload any of the five as quickly as possible to help plug the ever widening deficit in government finances.

It is clear that the privatisation agenda is centre to this government, but in the new world of image consciousness, we don't use such coarse words as sell-off or even privatisation.

Brennan tells us instead that he has "no ideological position" on privatisation and that he would just be pragmatic. This is nonsense, because Brennan and the government do have an ideology, and it is a market-driven privatising one.

In the same interview, Brennan says "I believe that the state should not be involved in commercial activities that it does not have to be involved in".

It is not just in the arena of quick sell offs that the privatisation agenda is again looming. The PDs have openly been seeking to bring private bus contractors onto Dublin streets. But again, in the Fianna Fáil ranks there is silence.

There are silent shrugs all around when it comes to the environmental issues affecting Brennan's new department. There is the environmental impact of new road building and the whole question of whether this could be the government that finally takes a stand and begins to roll back a car centred transport policy in favour of a public transport one.

We have been promised an "integrated transport plan" in the programme for government. It is interesting to note that taxpayers' money will be poured into a dubious road building programme while bus and rail developments are to be made dependant on private sector investment. We know that when it comes to long term strategic investment, the private sector is always found wanting.

Why else does the government have to nurse Aer Lingus and refloat it before sell off? Because the private sector is unwilling to invest right now. The same principle can be found in many other major infrastructural demands facing the economy and not just in tranport.

So Seamus, come clean. Admit that you are a privatising, car pandering minister who is little troubled with environmental concerns. As you say yourself, "No country in the world has found a way of building motorways that does not disturb the environment". Great to have excuses like that, isn't it?

Coalition's young turks

As Fianna Fáil and the PDs shared out the junior cabinet posts and the nice cars, more Bertie backtracking became apparent. In the post-election hype he promised to revitalise the cabinet with younger people. Well, not one of his new junior ministers is under 40 and 12 of the 17 are over 50. If the coalition runs to its full term of office, there will be 14 junior ministers over 50.

It must be a case of young at heart.

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The politics of Prodi

EU Commission president Romano Prodi was appointed in 1999 to reform what had become an unaccountable, undemocratic and at times corrupt institution. It has been clear since then that he had no reforming agenda at all. Instead he wanted to press on with a process of integration and centralisation of power within the EU.

You have to have a sneaking regard for Prodi. Every time someone in the Irish government chooses to lecture republicans and tell us that the EU is not developing into a superstate, or a two-tier Europe, up pops Romano to say exactly the opposite.

This week Prodi unveiled more of his "reform" plans. He wants to create an inner cabinet among the EU Commission. Currently there are 20 commissioners and with enlargement this group will grow. The commissioners are the executive and in charge of the day-to-day running of the EU Commission. Under the Nice Treaty, it is envisaged that some states might eventually lose their right to appoint a commissioner to this powerful institution.

Under Prodi's plan, he wants to make ten commissioners vice-presidents and form them into an inner core, with the wider commission only meeting once or twice a month. Prodi also believes that he can do this without changing existing EU treaties.

With an EU summit in Seville this week, one wonders if Bertie Ahern will find the time to raise this issue at the Council of Ministers, or maybe he will be dusting off that speech about the EU not becoming overly centralised or be emerging into a two-tier structure.

We are being silly, of course. An inner and outer cabinet in the EU Commission couldn't mean that at all. When will this republican scaremongering end?

Housing rights

A constitutional right to housing, to shelter is the cornerstone of Sinn Féin's housing policy and was stressed by them throughout the election campaign. Even Labour conceded in their manifesto that such a right was needed.

Some of the conservative establishment parties and the media scoffed at such a proposal. However a recent conference organised by Threshold and the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies has come to exactly the same conclusion.

Even more interesting was the disclosure that the UN Committee on Human Rights has recommended that the 26 Counties incorporate social, economic and cultural rights into its constitution.

Constitutional provisions only work where they are enforced and promoted and this often means committing resources to the problem. In the 26 Counties we have a political establishment who wont even take that first step.