A little less conversation, a little more action needed from Ahern
The dust had barely settled on last week's Leinster House election when the reality of unfinished business and new crises crashed through the Ahern honeymoon. First, he found that he couldn't get Roy back on a plane to Japan. But more important are the long list of things to do facing the incoming government.
The rejected Nice Treaty and increasing intervention from the bureaucracy of the EU must be high on the list. Add in huge infrastructure and planning issues in the 26 Counties' gas and power networks as well as questions about the overall performance of the economy, industrial unrest, partnership negotiations and you have a long difficult summer looming.
None of these problems are new. They were all neglected as Bertie demonstrated his handshaking abilities with little sign of his actually working on the day job. ROBBIE MacGABHANN highlights just three of this week's pressing issues.
Power hungry Prodi
What to do with EU structures and institutions that are too powerful, too bureaucratic and too unaccountable has been the focus of many minds over the last year. The rejection of the Nice Treaty by the 26-County electorate, which normally jumps on the EU bandwagon, has indirectly been a contributing factor to the EU Convention on the Future for Europe.
A submission by EU Commission president Romano Prodi to the convention shows how little the people matter to the EU's power brokers. Prodi wants the EU to develop common policies on immigration with a single EU legal code and an EU border guard.
Prodi claimed that, "Building a Europe-wide democracy does not mean building a super state". This EU democracy would involve combining the roles of the EU's foreign policy chief with that of the Commissioner for External Relations. The EU Commission would also have responsibility for any military operations involving the EU's Rapid Reaction Force.
The Commission also wants to be given more economic powers including influence over member states' budgets and the abolition of vetoes on tax and social policies.
It hasn't occurred to Prodi that the EU Commission is seen as too powerful and too unaccountable already. Has he forgotten already that he was appointed to reform what was found to be a corrupted institution?
Prodi is not alone. EU Convention chairperson Giscard d'Estaing believes that there should be one EU foreign affairs minister for the 15 member states. d'Estaing said: "Such a person would be the speaker of the second global power."
Perhaps most strange of the EU-related events this week were the disclosures and denials that the German government was preparing an emergency plan to bypass the 26 Counties if the electorate here rejects the Nice Treaty in a second referendum. It then transpired that it wasn't the Germans but the EU Commission, who after originally scoffing news reports have now come clean.
"Of course the Commission has been looking at this issue", said a spokesperson on enlargement. The Commission spokesperson also claimed that "there is no secret plan hidden away, to be pulled out if Ireland says 'no' a second time".
Sinn Féin TD and representative at the Forum on Europe, Aengus Ó Snodaigh has summed up the Commission's actions as "clear evidence of the democratic deficit within the European Union". Ó Snodaigh said, "The EU Commission needs to consider the reasons why the Irish people rejected Nice. We rejected it because of the threat it poses to our neutrality, our sovereignty, our right to an EU Commissioner and because it would relegate Ireland to a second tier within Europe.
"It seems that for now these are not issues for the EU Commission and even if we object we will just be bypassed. Welcome to life in the new Europe."
Ó Snodaigh has also rejected John Bruton's assertion last week that Ireland will be treated as a "problem child in Europe" if we reject any future rerun of the Treaty of Nice referendum. The Sinn Féin TD described the level of debate engaged in by the pro-treaty parties around the central issues as contemptible.
Investing in the future
Three crucially important news items briefly surfaced in public view this week. They were investment plans by Bord Gáis and the ESB and a report from Forfás, the 26-County policy and advisory board for enterprise, trade, science, technology & innovation. The Forfás report showed that spending on research and development in the 26 Counties had fallen in the late 1990s and was behind EU and OECD averages.
Together, these issues show that vital decisions about future investment projects that could bring immense benefit to the whole Irish economy are either not being taken or are being implemented without a full public debate on the issues.
Take for example the Bord Gáis proposals to raise up to Û500 million through a bond issue. The money would part fund the company's Û1.4 billion capital investment programme.
The bond project could be developed into a much more positive venture with an all-Ireland dimension. Bond issues to the general public could also be a useful tool to keep Bord Gáis in public rather private ownership.
Similarly, the ESB now has to raise over Û2 billion to part-fund renewal of its network. Last weekend, senior ESB management officials, the energy regulator and government civil servants met to discuss future strategies.
It is vital that new power stations and an extended network are built in the West and North West. Equally important is to make sure that these decisions are taken to ensure that the new network and stations fulfill the need for a nuclear free, environmentally sustainable energy supply. We need to debate and discuss this and again there is a clear all-Ireland dimension to be addressed.
Don't forget the economy
During the election campaign there was the odd warning that whoever got into power would have to deal with an economy clearly underperforming and not generating nearly enough revenue to match expectations.
Now the chickens are roosting and Fianna Fáil has to face up to not just forecasting the short term future of the economy but accommodating some of the bizarre decisions of the past.
First off is where is the government going to get the billions needed to fund the Special Savings Investment Account Scheme? Pat McArdle, Ulster Bank head of research, believes that the savings scheme is just one of the spending burdens that will lead the next government to cut spending and raise taxes. The new government will have to find up to Û3 billion to fund these initiatives.
To add to the woe, new economic data from the Central Statistics Office shows "a very significant and worrying weakness in many areas of the manufacturing sector" according to the employers' organisation, IBEC.
Also worrying are house prices rising more in the first four months of 2002 than they did for the whole of 2001. Prices have risen by 4.6% since January. The average price paid for a house is Û241,745 in Dublin and Û169,020 outside Dublin.
Fianna Fáil has to recognise that buying a new home is still way beyond the means of most wage earners and this means longer waiting lists for public sector housing. Has the new government the will to take on the vested interests in the housing sector that are driving up house prices much more than actual inflation?
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