In the weeks after the 2002 election many in the media complained that the election had come and gone without an adequate consideration of the issues. Some even apologised for their own part in allowing coverage of the 2002 campaign (especially in the last weeks) to become all about who would win rather than what the parties stood for.
The 2007 election is still some months away but already there are signs that the issues are not going to get a look in. This week has set a bad precedent for how this election is going to be covered. Much of the space which should be given to a pre-election debate about the issues, has instead been filled with coverage about post-election scenarios for government formation.
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte got more attention than any other politician this week but very little of it touched on the important policy announcement he and his party made last weekend.
Questions about the options for government are both legitimate and important. So too are questions about what the parties might do if their preferred options are not available to them. However, already, the attention directed towards those questions is disproportionate and as a result the issues are being sidelined.
The most significant thing which Rabbitte had to say last week wasn't about government formation but about pre-school education. Last Sunday, Labour called a press conference to highlight their promise to provide five hours a day, five days a week pre-school education free to all children for one year. Labour says this promise is the first of what they are calling their "Five Commitments for Change". These are five specific policy priorities which Labour is promising it will implement in government. Details of the other four key commitments are to be published in the coming weeks.
At Sunday's event Rabbitte personally committed himself and his party to implementing these pledges and promised to ensure that they feature in any programme for government which Labour signs up to after the election. He says this free year of pre-school for all children will be at the top of his "to do" list in government and promised it will be delivered within five years.
The roll-out of these five commitments is obviously designed to emphasise Labour's own distinct policy positioning and it represents a shift in strategy for the Labour Party. It contrasts sharply with the intense embrace of the rainbow government option and the many joint Rabbitte-Kenny photo-ops of last autumn.
The Labour Party has published about 55 different policy documents over the last four and a half years dealing with a range of issues. These documents have varied in both length and depth. Much of their content focuses on criticisms that the current Government has done things too slowly or wasted too much public money.
In the main, however, Labour's documents have set out policy proposals which are not significantly different from those already being implemented by the current Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government. There are a small number of exceptions to this and the promise to provide a free year of pre-school education to all children is one of them.
Last weekend the Labour Party said this pre-school initiative would cost € 180 million. A distinct, specific, firm promise from an opposition party on a policy issue is unusual and therefore one would have expected that it would have got a lot of attention. This promise from the Labour Party is not new - they announced it in a document on childcare and pre-school education published in October 2005 - but its elevation to a key priority for government is newsworthy.
Despite this, Rabbitte's announcement appears to have received little media coverage apart from some diligent reporting of last Sunday's event in a few newspapers and a debate on the topic on Today FM's Last Word radio programme.
Rabbitte should have been repeatedly questioned on this policy proposal in every interview he did this week. Among the questions which come to mind are the following: How was the figure of € 180 million arrived at? Is Labour promising to spend this € 180 million in addition to the funds already being paid out in child benefit and the early childcare supplement? Is it to replace the monies already being spent on building and/or incentivising childcare facilities? If not, then where is the € 180 million to come from?
How is this plan for a nationwide network of State-run pre-school facilities to be implemented? How many extra staff will be recruited to the public service to deliver this pre-schooling? What will the wage and pensions bill be for this staff? Have factors like rampant construction inflation and limited labour supply being factored into the cost of rolling out these facilities? The wisdom of spending an additional €180 million should also have been questioned. It's not that pre-school education isn't a good idea - all of the studies suggest it is a very good idea - it's that making it freely available to all children irrespective of their parents' capacity or willingness to pay for it will further distort inequalities in the childcare area.
The children of millionaires will benefit from this initiative; wouldn't the resources be better targeted at the children of relatively poorer parents?
Labour's first key commitment is a populist proposal - but it is not an equitable one. Neither is it the cure-all for the childcare difficulties which relatively poorer families face.
More targeted direct provision of childcare in disadvantaged areas or more funding to non-profit groups which provide subsidised childcare would be a better way to spend an extra € 180 million a year.
Spending this money on initiatives to support primary schooling in disadvantaged areas might be more useful.
Rabbitte has been pressed repeatedly this week on his attitude to post-election scenarios but many questions about his policies went unasked and therefore unanswered.