Ms Mary Harney's demarche on single mother benefits has brought into focus what may be a defining choice in the formation of the next government. This may or may not have been her intention. But in raising the issue as she did, she has put down a dividing line between the style of administration we would be likely to have in a Fianna Fail/PD coalition and that which would apply in a continued alignment in power of Fine Gael, Labour and the Democratic Left.
Almost any social worker, teacher or community garda, will confirm what Ms Harney describes. For many young girls in deprived areas, pregnancy and the setting up of one's own home with a new baby is a condition which may be positively sought out. The financial considerations can be relatively attractive. It confers a form of status and independence. However the reality may turn out, it seems to offer the prospect of happiness and a new life focus.
What Ms Harney did not articulate in her announcement is the reality which so often lies behind such desperate reasoning by young girls, sometimes little more than children themselves. It is a reality very often of unemployment, of alcoholic and violent homes, crime, abuse and lack of education. It is one of the most tragic manifestations of the deprivation which grips a significant minority of our population in certain identifiable areas. And it often repeats itself, from generation to generation.
Ms Harney and the Progressive Democrats will say they have not actually proposed the elimination of the benefits which make it possible for young single mothers to set up house alone. Rather are they proposing that incentives be made available to encourage them to do otherwise. But the drift of the thinking is clear enough. And while some will applaud Ms Harney's stand, many will see something odious in what is essentially a proposal for behaviour modification. It reflects a dubious order of priorities while so many aspects of these young girls' lives are fundamentally disadvantaged and when the conditions in which they exist are often cruel and deprived.
We can surely learn lessons from our neighbours. Britain's economic regeneration has been bought at the price of further brutalising its underclasses where crime, ignorance and racial tension are deeply ingrained. But we do not have to make the same mistakes in our new found economic buoyancy. Our commitment should be to the elimination of deprivation and poverty rather than seeking to bribe or coerce those whose lives have been blighted by them.
Taken together with the proposal to fund tax cuts by eliminating a major element of the PRSI system, this proposal fixes the Progressive Democrats on a different pathway from the other main parties - including their potential partners in government, Fianna Fail. Fianna Fail sources privately seek to play down the significance of this, suggesting that in the event of a coalition with the Progressive Democrats their own preponderance of numbers would be such that the PDs would have little influence and would be unlikely to hold any of the major Cabinet posts. But it is doubtful if Mary Harney and her colleagues would roll over quietly and accept that.
The battle lines are becoming clearer. Mary Harney and the Progressive Democrats have set out their stall and no doubt there are those who will be interested in what they have to offer. But Mr Ahern and Fianna Fail must be dismayed to see them pitching in these terms for the same market as themselves.