The Taoiseach sharply criticised the Labour Party's economic policy at the weekend. Mr Ahern told delegates to Ogra Fianna Fail's national conference in Westport, Co Mayo, that Fianna Fail had always had a lot in common with Labour in terms of social policy.
"Many observers consider that we are Ireland's Labour party, and we normally get along very well with the trade union half of the Labour movement. But we have a different and more effective way of achieving social equity.
"We do not believe in forever paying over a large share of each year's tax revenue in debt interest to banks. We do not agree that after the PPF we have to stop relieving the burden on the average PAYE taxpayer for fear that a government containing Labour might run out of public money to spend.
"We do not believe in creating or retaining State monopolies for their own sake, except where we are satisfied that the private sector cannot, and will not, do the job to the standards required. The old deserve, and are getting, a much better deal from this Government, and from Fianna Fail, than Labour and DL in government were prepared to give them."
The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, renewed her call for a debate on Ireland's place within the European Union.
She said that the State had signed up to Europe and had reaped benefits from this as well as honouring its commitments. "I am not one who believes in a united states of Europe. In the past, uniformity and coherence were promoted sometimes at the expense of full debate on their meaning for the future of the EU and the place of each country in it."
Ms de Valera told delegates she was concerned that with the State's new wealth there had come a disturbing indifference towards those who had not prospered. "We have, as a society, failed many on its margins: many are homeless on the streets of our cities; the plight of those crushed by poverty in rural areas is often not even recognised. As a society, we must not allow homelessness, drug addiction, poverty and the plight of many young people to be viewed as insoluble problems."
