LEADERS IN WAITING: As the general election draws closer, Labour Party leader Ruairí Quinn talks to Alison O'Connor, Political Reporter, in our series of interviews with the main party leaders
AO'C: You have said your preference post-election would be a rainbow coalition. What portfolios would you like for Labour; what Ministry would you like to have?
RQ: In the first instance, the reason for the preference is that I believe the present Government is tired. I believe the personnel are tired. Many of them have been in office since 1987 with a break of 2½ years and that is showing.
My preference would be for a three-way coalition Government. The reason why we are standing as an independent party is to get as big a mandate for the Labour Party policies as we can. I'm more interested in what the next government is going to do rather than who is going to be in it. At this stage I don't have a preference for particular departments. All of that would fall into shape after an election.
AO'C: But you must have thought of your own preference?
RQ: Well I certainly wouldn't be interested in being Minister for Foreign Affairs, even though it has been put forward. Nothwithstanding the work that Dick Spring did, and he did an excellent job, the focus of attention was largely on the North and that by and large has now been achieved and a lot of credit to him for that. But I think the task of managing a party and being in Government would be very difficult in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
AO'C: Your stated preference after the election is a rainbow coalition. How is your personal relationship with Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan?
RQ: Very good. I get on with him well. I think he has had a very difficult job. Looking at my own four years, I couldn't have given the speech that I gave on Saturday (at the Labour conference) with a sense of confidence and with the delivery and all of that, even though I have been a long time in politics. There is one hell of a difference when you get to be numero uno, and everything is riding on your shoulders, as distinct from being a supporting player. He didn't get the job in the same way that I did.
Dick Spring handed over a very united party after a great period of leadership with full support. He (Noonan) has had very little time and his start was disastrous from his point of view, not because of anything that he did, I should say, but over the revelations which emerged about which he clearly had no knowledge. So against that background I think he has done very well.
AO'C: In the event that Labour does not form part of the next Government, could you see yourself continuing as party leader?
RQ: Very much so. I mean politics is very much my life. I'm fit and hale and hearty. I'll be 56 next week (on Tuesday). A lot depends on the election but I'm not going to die in the job. I'm not going to continue on doing it. I have enjoyed the last four years. I think we have made a lot of progress on a lot of fronts.
AO'C: What would you do after politics?
RQ: I would like to teach, do that kind of thing - architecture, housing, planning, that sort of stuff.
AO'C: Fine Gael say giving money to the pension fund is a bottom line for them, as it is for Fianna Fáil. Given your different position, what does that mean for possible coalition negotiations?
RQ: If you take the proposals that Fianna Fáil have put forward in terms of the national health strategy or the National Development Plan (NDP), staying with the capital side of things, and given the current state of finances for the next year and a half, on the projections of the Department of Finance, it doesn't make sense, simultaneously to put away money to invest in a pension fund and at the same time to go and borrow.
If they are not going to borrow they are not going to be able to do the things they are claiming they will do, so something is going to have to give. We are saying nobody in their right mind would go down to the credit union to borrow money and put it into the post office.
AO'C: Is it a bottom line for you then?
RQ: It is, yes. I don't want to pre-empt negotiations or start lecturing or dictating to other people. We have set out as rigorously and as honestly and coherently as we possibly can what it is we want to do and also how we intend to pay for it. None of the other parties has indicated that. And yes, we are saying what we want to do will cost money and it will be expensive, relatively speaking but we believe the economy can handle it and people are entitled to it and need it.
AO'C: What are the differences then in economic policies between yourselves Fine Gael and the Government?
RQ: There is scope for additional current and capital spending over that planned by the Government and Fine Gael. The current spending/GDP ratio remains the lowest in Europe at 25 per cent, so we should not be afraid of spending growth above our economic growth rate.
I think we still have scope to increase spending by a couple of points a year more than set out by FG. The need to ensure better value for money for what we spend is ongoing.
On the capital side, Fine Gael are right that the National Development Plan is in crisis but their response to that is inadequate. We estimate that the plan is around €.5billion behind schedule at the moment - capital spending was effectively frozen by the Government this year to pay for its election budget.
Unless we invest in our economic future we will not get the kind of growth we need. While we are still finalising our figures, Labour is looking at increases in capital expenditure of well over a billion a year than that of either the Government or Fine Gael. We will remain comfortably within the Maastricht criteria.
The Government is all over the place on these issues. They will borrow one day, they won't borrow another day. It is a recipe for chaos.
AO'C: Where will you land the blows on the Government in the next few weeks?
RQ: We have already held up the differences on what Fianna Fáil are promising and what they are actually delivering . . . In the past, the Department of Finance could only plan capital projects over three years because the cycle of uncertainty sort of really kicked in at that point. Now we are in the single currency, we can borrow in the euro and not run the risk of an exchange rate; money is historically cheaper now than it has been for a long time.
We can borrow over a five- or 10-year period. You could say to the NDP or to the schools - here's your capital for the next five years. I would ask the National Treasury Management Agency to do the reverse of what it did for us in managing the debt. Give us a supply of capital at the best possible rate over the next 10 years and then you could turn around to the schools and to the departments for our National Spatial Plan and say to international contractors - 'look, we want a motorway system, so we want five thousand million euros, built over five or 10 years and come in and do it'.
AO'C: Would you coalesce with the Progressive Democrats?
RQ: I would coalesce around a policy programme that reflects the priorities of the Labour Party. Insofar as the Progressive Democrats could buy into that, then I have no personal objection, in principle to them. I think someone like Mary Harney is more of a populist than a right-wing dialogue, to be honest with you. But that would be a matter for them than for us.
AO'C: So they would have to bend to your demands.
RQ: That sounds very superior and very demanding, if you like. I certainly couldn't see us buying into a PAD agenda and they are a party of conviction so I would find it very hard to envisage such a coalition because there is such a gap politically. I have no personal animosity towards the PDs as individuals; that wouldn't be a barrier . . . but I would find it very hard to envisage a coalition.
What is your position on tax individualisation?
RQ: I was opposed to it at the time. Ithink it was highly discriminatory . . . I will certainly try and reverse it. We will have to look at the costs of how it kicks in now. But it certainly is very anti-family and very anti the couple who chose for a variety of reasons to have one parent working at home, rearing children, both as an economic choice and a personal lifestyle choice. And I think we have to undo that discrimination.
AO'C: Michael Noonan is saying he would do it by narrowing the gap between single- and double-income families by increasing the benefits to single-income families over time.
RQ: We would look at all the different options. I don't have a preferred way of doing it. But I am committed to eliminating the inequality that was brought into the system.
AO'C: What do you think of the idea of a Fine Gael Cabinet enforcer?
RQ: We've had it before, that was the programme manager system. There is a need for Cabinet decisions to be enforced, there is no doubt about that. How you do it is a matter of choice. Giving the job to a particular individual I would see as something akin to one programme manager co-originating all the other programme managers.
AO'C: Would you prefer the programme managers system which was controversial in the past?
RQ: It was only controversial because it was made controversial by the numbers of people employed, but in fact it was extremely effective and far less costly than the massive amounts of money being spent by public relations consultants by the present Government.
AO'C: Why did you address your own personal situation at the Labour conference last weekend, speaking about your marriage breakdown and subsequent remarriage?
RQ: I think people want to know more about their political leaders than the public external face - the man in the suit in Dáil Éireann . . . I think there is a natural interest in what makes somebody tick. Why are you doing the job you do, why did you get into it, what are your interests. It was an attempt to present that.
AO'C: What is your personal position on abortion?
RQ: Very much in agreement with the three masters. Reading the Deirdre de Barra letter, I don't know the woman but . . . my own personal view is that cases such as that should be accommodated in this jurisdiction.
AO'C: What about cases of rape and incest?
RQ: I would be very sympathetic to that. It's easy to say yes in principle to these things but when you look at the detail of how it would be done and all of that it can get problematic. But I think the first priority at this stage would be to legislate for the X case, provide for that and see where we are after that. I would not propose another referendum at this stage. Time has to pass.
AO'C: With what emotions are you looking forward to the next few weeks ahead of the election?
RQ: I used to play an awful lot of competitive sport and the emotions are very similar to the feelings in the changing-room before you go out on the pitch or before a race.
My sport was long-distance running, middle-distance running, which is a very lonely sport. Politics is much more of a team game. I am very much in training . . . I've been in effect on a fitness routine anyway, walking to work, losing weight, minding the diet. I am really looking forward to it because we are in good nick.
The emotional mood and attitude and a sense of things working are critical to self-confidence and self-confidence is critical to good performance and good performance attracts the attention of people.