Towards Recovery: Programme for a National Government 2011 - 2016

Sponge Bob

This is the agreed Labour/FG Programme for Government. I have been told it will be uploaded to the Labour site shortly and to the FG website later.

Watch

http://www.labour.ie/

If anyone picks up a copy do upload it here

Sponge Bob

RTE showing the labour conference live. Any minute now.

http://www.rte.ie/live/

nilhg

Sponge Bob wrote: »

This is the agreed Labour/FG Programme for Government. I have been told it will be uploaded to the Labour site shortly and to the FG website later.

Watch

http://www.labour.ie/

If anyone picks up a copy do upload it here

They could take "gilmore for taoiseach" off the site, not much chance of that now....

Killer Pigeon

OK,

So I heart the Department of Finance is going to be split into two new ministries. One for public sector reform and another for public expenditure. I also hear Labour will be in charge of public sector reform ... the right-wingers aren't going to be happy with that.

Killer Pigeon

Ahhh Jack O'Connor is on it now!

My eyes, arrgghh!!

ongarite

Sounds like a load of fairytale stuff.
Reducing the deficit to 3% by 2015 while not increasing income tax or decreasing child benefits or social welfare.

Jimmyireland

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Ahhh Jack O'Connor is on it now!

My eyes, arrgghh!!

He is some PRICK

Killer Pigeon

Jimmyireland wrote: »

He is some PRICK

True, I hope Labour vote against the programme for government. I'm watching the conference now, the against side seems to have much more facts than the side for it. The for side is mainly sound bites.

Amtmann

Text available here: http://www.politics.ie/current-affairs/155053-live-release-programme-government.html#post3667799

ei.sdraob

http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/programme_for_national_government.pdf

is that the one?

z0oT

It's up on the labour site now:

http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/programme_for_national_government.pdf

Aidric

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

I also hear Labour will be in charge of public sector reform ...

Is this a joke?

Killer Pigeon

Aidric wrote: »

Is this a joke?

No, the Dept. of Finance will be split into two ministries. One of them will be for Public Sector reform and Labour will be in charge of that. No joke.

rumour

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

No, the Dept. of Finance will be split into two ministries. One of them will be for Public Sector reform and Labour will be in charge of that. No joke.

OMG finance split....even less accountability......

Breezer

Having read through the whole thing, this is my take, as a Fine Gael voter who wanted single-party government:

It's primarily FG policy, as it should be given the seat numbers. I'm particularly delighted with Health, which is basically Fine Gael's FairCare proposal. Labour's main economic 'wins' seems to be the non-reduction of social welfare and the responsibility for Public Service reform (which isn't obviously mentioned in the PfG but it's obvious this is how the Finance issue was resolved). This concerns me, as they're two major drains on the public finances, but some concessions had to be made in a coalition and I don't think FG conceded anything blindly.

2015 was always going to be the target for debt to GDP reduction once a coalition was on the cards. It's already been given the OK from the EU/IMF so no change there really.

Regarding public service numbers, while I admired Fine Gael's tough stance, Labour may actually have done them a favour here, since I'm not sure how realistic 30,000 was. 22,000-25,000 is still a substantial reduction, and if it's carried through I think this somewhat makes up for having a Labour Minister at the helm.

A related coup for Labour seems to be Transport policy. Bus privatisation will now be "explored" by a Cabinet sub-committee. Everything else in there is extremely vague.

After that, Labour's influence seems to be limited to aspects of social policy which won't affect the economy much, such as putting same-sex marriage on the table, postponing optional Leaving Cert Irish until after curriculum and teaching reform has been tried, and the omission of any reference to stag hunting. I actually agree with all of these things, so pretty happy.

Obviously there's more to it than this, but I don't want my post to go on all night. But I think it's an ambitious programme that reflects well the mandate each party was given by the electorate. It comes with a major health warning in that it's basically an aspiration rather than a set-in-stone list of things that will happen, but I certainly think it's heading in the right direction and is a hell of lot better than what we had a week ago. I'm cautiously optimistic.

.BrianJM

How do we interpret the following:

We will examine the role, and collection of, the TV license fee in light of existing and projected convergence of broadcasting technologies, transform the TV licence into a household-based Public Broadcasting Charge applied to all households and applicable businesses, regardless of the device they use to access content and review new ways of TV licence collection, including the possibility of paying in instalments through another utility bill (electricity or telecom), collection by local authorities, Revenue or new contract with An Post.

If a 'Public Broadcasting Charge' is introduced, great - I'm not broadcasting.
[O.K. it'll get changed to public broadcast reception or similar.]

So what is a public broadcast? Technically I suppose this post is, as would be posts on Twitter and other social networks...
...an internet tax?
Maybe I'll wait a while before getting the netbook and new mobile phone that I promised myself!

Fortunately it's only an FG idea at present and a relatively minor one, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a mini budget in the next 100 days, when anything (almost) could be announced.

Kristopherus

There is going to be another "Jobs" Budget (read Finance Bill) in the first 100 days.

View

Auld-Yin wrote: »

How do we interpret the following:

We will examine the role, and collection of, the TV license fee in light of existing and projected convergence of broadcasting technologies, transform the TV licence into a household-based Public Broadcasting Charge applied to all households and applicable businesses, regardless of the device they use to access content and review new ways of TV licence collection, including the possibility of paying in instalments through another utility bill (electricity or telecom), collection by local authorities, Revenue or new contract with An Post.

It means that the RTE Salary subsidisation charge (a.k.a. the license fee) is going to go up as the presenters there are starting to complain about being under-paid.

godtabh

Is there a household tax or water charges?