Republican News · Thursday 14 March 2002

Ahern's out of focus vision

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

The truth is that the two-tier society is alive and well, and this government has done little to redeem it

"Let's go out and get the bastards." "I say to the people of Ireland - together, let's finish the job." Bertie Ahern made two speeches last week. One was in Roscommon at a local election meeting and one was in Dublin as the centerpiece of the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis.

Though the colourful use of language in Roscommon might prompt some comment, Ahern's ard fheis speech definitely needs careful examination. Apart from his boast of creating "the longest and most stable government", Ahern unwrapped a vision of Ireland many of us won't recognise.

It is true that this government cut taxes significantly and that employment grew substantially for four out the five years it has been in office, but to claim that "poverty was being tackled and social progress is being achieved" is a bridge too far. "Now finally we are ending the two-tier society," said Ahern.

Ahern was able to tell us how many jobs have been created - 370,000. We were told how the standard rate of income tax had been cut from 26% to 20%, 380,000 people have been taken out of the tax net and how there were 1,200 new prison places, 1,200 new gardaí. Then there was that old Fianna Fáil reliable, increasing old age pensions.

What Ahern doesn't seem to realise is that as positive as some of these achievements are, they are during an unprecedented boom the minimum of what was possible. Still not getting the point, Ahern asked was this "a squandered opportunity". No Bertie, it was a missed one, especially in the context of the current recession, which didn't merit a mention in his speech.

For example, Ahern argued that the best way to end the two-tier society was through creating jobs. It sounds great but the 26-County working economy is one where £104 a week is the average gross income of the poorest groups. This is in stark contrast to the average gross weekly income of the wealthiest 10% of households, who have to get by on £1,054 a week.

It is not so strange then, that Ahern didn't mention the cuts in the higher rate of income tax, the halving of capital gains tax, the parallel tax cuts for business and most importantly the fact that people working on the minimum wage are still in the tax net while those on super high income can pay a lower percentage tax, through the legal use of avoidance schemes and other loopholes.

Just to take one example of where Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats are failing badly - education. Ahern told the Irish public that, "I am proud of what has been achieved since 1997". Is he proud of the fact that in public sector Irish schools one third of students have reading ages two or more years below their chronological age, where one in five schools do not have a dedicated room for remedial teachers, where reading standards at the age of 14 are the lowest in the industrialised world and where one in ten students are leaving primary school with serious literacy problems?

Was Ahern proud of an education system where children from low-income households are 16 times more likely to leave school without a formal qualification than those in the higher income brackets? These deprived students are four times more likely to get insufficient points to get to third level and three times less likely to go even if they had the points.

It must have come as no surprise to Ahern to find that increasing the number of third level places by 15,000 has led to no increase in the number of people from low income and welfare dependent households.

The truth is that the two-tier society is alive and well, and this government has done little to redeem it. Ahern told us that "we need a kindler, gentler republicanism". He also told us that the "we in Fianna Fáil will continue to encourage former revolutionary parties to complete their transformation" to become strictly democratic ones".

The revolution, if that's what you want to call it Bertie, is not over. It cannot be until everyone is sharing the wealth, participating fully the way they want to in the workplace, in their local communities and really "delivering for all our people".

Your vision of "the people" leaves too many of us behind. Your language could be a lot better too!