Fianna Fáil and the PDs have proved incapable of delivering infrastructural improvements to keep pace with the needs of the economy. The result has been a devastating negative impact, both on our national competitiveness and on the quality of life of everyone.
The following is a selection of the main features of the Fine Gael manifesto:
Economy
Fianna Fáil and the PDs have managed our economy badly:
They have let public spending get totally out of control. Compared to a promise to keep growth to 4 per cent a year, their actual annual spending growth averaged 15 per cent. Then, as the boom slackened, they went on spending even faster last year; the growth hit a completely unsustainable 23 per cent.
This demolished an Exchequer surplus of €3 billion in 2000, and public finances are now on course for a €6 billion deficit in 2004. Not only have they spent excessively, they have spent badly. Budgets have been over-run (in some cases by several hundred per cent); there has been no pursuit of value-for-money; there have been many procurement scandals and irregularities. Often, despite massive spending, there has been no visible improvement in services. They have proved incapable of delivering infrastructural improvements to keep pace with the needs of the economy. The result has been a devastating negative impact, both on our national competitiveness and on the quality of life of everyone. They have pursued a narrow tax strategy under which many have not shared in the benefits of progress.
Fine Gael will:
1. Hold current spending growth to nominal growth in GDP plus 2 per cent, subject to a current budget surplus of at least €2 billion. Major spending to be only in the context of far-reaching reform. Appoint a Cabinet Minister to lead a value-for-money drive. Reform the public sector to embrace reorganisation, performance-related pay, merit-based promotion and quality benchmarking.
2. Freeze rates of income tax, capital gains tax, corporation tax and value-added tax for the life of the government.
3. Accelerate implementation of the National Development Plan by 25 per cent funding through public/private partnerships by 2006, and by inviting the National Pension Reserve Fund to fund projects where the financial return satisfies the trustees. To speed up land acquisition, a capital gains tax exemption will apply to land acquired by CPO provided agreement is reached quickly.
4. Put greater emphasis in Social Partnership agreements on maintaining competitiveness and on flexibility to change. Improvements in public services and social protection will be the foundation of a new contract.
5. Stimulate a competitive environment to improve service quality, through strengthened regulators and the Competition Authority.
6. When there are exceptional surpluses, give everyone a stake in economic success through a national profit-sharing scheme. Every taxpayer will get a minimum share issue in years when a bonus applies; taxpayers will get an extra bonus in proportion to the tax they pay. When real GDP growth is over 5 per cent, raise the amount put aside in the National Pensions Reserve Fund from 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent. When real GDP growth exceeds 5 per cent we will raise the amount put aside from 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent, the extra 0.5 per cent to cover general contingencies in addition to the 1 per cent for the pension reserve fund.
1. Place a new focus on literacy and numeracy and the sciences. Will increase the scale and quality of remedial intervention and set targets to monitor progress in rectifying reading problems. Implement the recommendations of the Task Force on the Physical Sciences to ensure our economy has the right skills for continued growth.
2. Strengthen the capacity of schools to develop services by devolving a larger budget to them, and set up a school improvement process where they can draw on technical support from a new Educational Development Authority.
3. Reform the system for processing school building projects to halve the current 6 year wait. Reform will include increased capital allocation, new design and build contracts, use of public/private partnerships and devolution of power to Boards of Management.
4. Introduce an education youth wage contract for those at risk of early school leaving, and an education credit account of €6,000 for early school-leavers which they can use at any later time.
5. Raise income eligibility for higher education grants and increase maintenance grants by 80 per cent, with higher payments for lower incomes.
6. Create a legal right for parents to an assessment of a child who exhibits significant learning difficulties, and a legal right to appeal if resources provided do not match the needs identified.
Children
1. Strongly support the role of parents - through longer maternal leave, financial support for paternal leave, and enhancing the tax position of stay-at-home parents.
2. Fund childcare and pre-schooling through a €1,200 capitation grant and a 20 per cent tax credit on childcare expenses. Provide community child centres, and ensure world-class standards in childcare, both public and private.
3. Nurture all children equally - through free medical services for all, defeating educational disadvantage, putting remedial services at the heart of education, safe community play and recreation areas for all, and educating to cope with alcohol, tobacco, drugs and aggression.
4. Focus the State's input - by streamlining services through fewer departments, and an independent Children's Commissioner to watch over their interests.
5. Introduce a National Entitlement Card for all those over 18.
6. Give young people in trouble a way back - with a local mediation service for early intervention, alternatives to custody for juvenile offenders, and immediate support to those who stop taking drugs.
Environment
1. Make recycling into a viable industry with capital grants and subsidies.
2. Give priority to waste reduction, by moving incentives to the point of waste generation rather than at the end of the pipe.
3. Discourage excessive packaging and encourage return of packaging and products at the end of their life.
4. Eliminate altogether the discharge of untreated sewage into inland waterways and the release of phosphorus into the water system.
5. Set up a National Waste Management Authority to develop a coherent strategy for the country, an independent Research Agency to guide policies, and a Waste Commissioner to report to the Oireachtas within six months on the operation of the Waste Management Act and on alternative disposal methods for residual waste.
6. Citizen participation to ensure there is a balanced assessment of waste management alternatives.
Transport
1. Appoint a single Minister for Transport, to cut out the overlap and lack of focus that results from transport matters being spread across different Departments.
2. A Dublin Transport Author- ity to deliver key infrastructures, manage traffic throughout the greater Dublin area, enforce the law through a new traffic corps, and introduce competition in pub- lic transport. An interim regulator will be immediately appointed to open up competition in Dublin bus services by inviting tenders for 20 per cent of public routes. Car pools will be allowed to use certain quality bus corridors. Free use of Dublin buses during the off-peak periods (10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m).
3. An independent commission to licence competition in public transport outside Dublin.
4. Set targets to cut journey times on inter-urban rail, and replace all substandard trains within three years.
5. Underpin a vibrant regional policy by strengthening the transport infrastructure outside urban areas. A new investment programme for county roads will bring them up to meet quality benchmarks in every part of the country.
6. A new programme for regional airport development.
1. Lead a more muscular policy at WTO to maintain a competitive agriculture within the EU, and to yield results to the developing world.
2. Simplify the increasing regulation of agricultural subsidies and premia payments and make penalties more proportionate to the importance of infringement.
3. Broaden area-based rural initiatives to encompass key services in transport, communications, health, education and housing.
4. Introduce prompt payment rules to agriculture payments and develop clear and transparent systems of payment for livestock on a verifiable quality basis.
5. Reform agricultural education to reflect today's conditions and reinforce links with technological and third-level institutions.
6. Implement the second part of the Installation Aid Scheme for young farmers by introducing low-interest development grants, and remove the work unit ceiling.
A Compassionate Ireland
1. Strengthen substantially our investment in primary care by helping GPs to develop their practices and improving access by doubling the income limit for medical cards, and extending free GP services to the lowest paid 60 per cent; all children up to 18 (and beyond while in full time education); all persons over 65; all those with serious disability.
2. End the two-tier system in public hospitals through an insurance-based system of access to care based on medical need. The State will pay the insurance premium to cover a core basket of essential hospital services.
3. Increase the number of beds in the different care settings to meet key shortages and ensure sufficient medical and nursing staff to meet patient need.
4. Develop an annual health check for everyone, to identify illness early and to identify lifestyle options to improve health.
5. Establish a Health Ombuds- man to oversee the rights of patients and a Surgeon General to overcome vested interests and to report directly to the Dáil.
6. Reform the management of health resources to get better value and amalgamate some health boards.
Sharing the benefits
1. Confront exclusion by a wide-ranging reform in health and education designed to ensure fair access for low-income families to these services.
2. Back up these reforms by maintaining the rate of social welfare increases ahead of inflation, providing free meals in all schools in disadvantaged areas, paying the family income supplement through the tax system to ensure it reaches all families who are entitled to it, and qualifying all widowers and widows for the married person's tax credits and tax bands and allowances.
3. Give families financial support at key stages in their life cycle when financial pressures on the family are greatest.
4. Back up these supports with others targeted at key life stages - including a birth grant of €300, child payments to all in full-time education up to the age of 22, including widows and widowers under 66 in free schemes, giving dependent spouses a full pension in their own right.
5. Reform the tax system to redress the imbalances created over the past five years - including a new 30 per cent rate of income tax to take moderate earners out of the top tax bracket; relief for single-income families whose position has been eroded by individualisation; exemption from income tax for the minimum wage; and the indexation of bands and allowances. Individual investors in Eircom will be allowed to offset their losses against income tax, at the standard rate.
6. Set a target to eliminate consistent child poverty completely by 2007.
An active and independent later life
1. A tax-free trust fund, into which people who continue working after retirement will be able to put aside money for their later use.
2. Promote preventive care, more services will be provided through GP surgeries and in the community. This will reduce the need for hospital or long-term care. Strong links will be built between improved facilities in hospital and in community care.
3. A contributory old age pension of €200 by 2006. GP services will be free to all over 65. Additional geriatricians will allow for the expansion of health services.
4. In hospitals priority will go to key procedures that support independence, with the aim of dramatically reducing waiting time. Rehabilitation and step-down facilities will ensure that older people are cared for in appropriate settings.
5. Caring will be supported by a non-means tested grant for independent living of up to €2,500 a year; by relaxing the means test for Carer's Allowance and entitling persons on social welfare to 50 per cent of that allowance; by ring-fencing respite beds and developing a guarantee of respite to give carers a break. The Home Help budget will be doubled and out-of-hours services developed.
6. A maximum waiting time will be set for fittings like rails, ramps, alarms and bathroom facilities; to clear the present arrears the approval requirements will be eased so that up to €3,800 can be spent on the GP's recommendation.
Safety on our streets and in our homes
1. A concerted campaign to stamp out street violence - using expanded closed circuit television, night courts, rapid response and high visibility policing, higher standards from private security firms, reforms in the Public Order Act, proper night schedules for public transport, a statutory identity card.
2. Safe Community Partnership Funds, setting aside special resources to support work in local communities to create safe environments.
3. Consultative policing committees at council level, where local gardaí report back to local representatives and their communities.
4. A prison service board with a clear mandate, an independent prisons inspectorate and an independent parole board.
5. Expanded use of restitution orders, community service orders, probation orders, extended supervision, and diversion programmes. This will involve a much-expanded probation and welfare service, and more emphasis on rehabilitation and restorative justice.
6. Statutory protections for the victims of crime, including the right to be kept informed of the progress of an investigation and the right to submit a victim's impact statement to the court before sentencing.
1. Secure the clear support of the Irish people for EU enlargement by a vigorous campaign to secure the ratification of the Nice Treaty explaining its importance to Ireland and to Europe as a whole, and that enlargement inevitably involves changes in the EU's decision-making process to make way for new members. The success of this campaign by a united, fully-committed government is crucial to our entire future in Europe.
2. Help to shape a citizen's Europe by promoting more democratic ways of selecting the Commission.
3. Support the setting up a second Chamber of Member States to better represent the increasing diversity across Europe.
4. Seek to match new competences for the EU with clear boundaries to its powers, always pursuing the ideal of economic, social and political solidarity.
5. Support an enforceable Charter of Fundamental Rights and of the values and duties of the European Union to its citizens.
6. Support full Irish involvement in EU decisions on peace and security, participating in appropriate missions but reserving the right to decide on a case by case basis whether to participate.
The gross cost of the detailed measures underlying this Manifesto and our full Programme for Government document to follow will, when all are fully implemented, amount to €5.7 billion in a full year. The net cost of the taxation reductions will, in a full year, amount to €1.9 billion.
Capital Projects estimated at €8 billion over five years are also proposed in conjunction with our manifesto proposals.
These proposals fit within the envelope outlined in our Economic Framework "Just Economics", and have been costed with the assistance of the Department of Finance and from information provided by individual Government Departments.