The FF - PD programme for government

shotamoose

Bertie and Mary have finally tied up the knots and published their Programme for Government - it's available in pdf at

http://www.irlgov.ie/taoiseach/press/current/ProgFor%20Govt..pdf

Just wondering what kind of reactions people have to it?

My own concerns would be Nice, transport, and PPP.

On Nice, "we will submit the Nice Treaty on enlargement to the people in a referendum to be held later this year in a way which
seeks to address the concerns of the people as expressed during previous referendums and in the National Forum on Europe". Nice and vague, that.

On Transport, they promise integrated ticketing and "new services" in the bus market. The Irish Times takes this to mean that "bus competition will be encouraged", and adds that Mary Harney is likely to take responsibility for an enlarged Department of Transport, which is a rather scary thought.

There's a strong strain of enthusiasm for private finance running through it, notably the creation of a National Development Finance Agency "to finance major public projects and to evaluate financing options for PPP projects". Personally, I'm very wary of the enthusiasm for PPP, as the attraction for government seems to be (i) a kind of off-the-books Enron-style accounting to avoid the dread spectre of borrowing, and (ii) opening up markets to private sector involvement.

Anyway that's enough from me.

BuffyBot

Personally, I think deregulation in the transport industry is long over due.

Although some steps have been made, further competition for CIE needs to be encouraged

dahamsta

Personally, I think deregulation in the transport industry is long over due.

Let's hope they make a nice bang-up* job of it, like Railtrack in the UK.

adam

* Irony

dahamsta

On Nice, "we will submit the Nice Treaty on enlargement to the people in a referendum to be held later this year in a way which
seeks to address the concerns of the people as expressed during previous referendums and in the National Forum on Europe". Nice and vague, that.

Vague indeed. If there's one thing that really turned me off Bertie in the last couple years, it's the way he didn't stand up for us on Nice. I have a lasting memory of himself and Prodi standing next to each other smiling at us through the camera like we were idiots. Talk about not respecting the democracy.

adam

Xterminator

Well I am glad to have the same parties returned to Government, and glad Mary o' Rourke is not part of it!

I think they did a good job for the last 5 yrs, from my point of view, and hope they can do more for the worse off in the next 5 years.

I particularly welcomed the commitment to remove minumin wage earners from the tax net, and to continiue to increase child allowance. I hope they deliver on the promises for the health service too.

Finally I love the way some people say the present government does not respect democracy when they say they will put Nice before the electorate again (which was only defeated by the samllest of margins), despite the fact that polls show it was rejected, not because of what it stood for, but because people didnt understand what it stood for.
This was not helped by the deliberate scare mongering of the opponents of Nice, claiming it would lead to Irleand joining NATO etc, when its patently not true.

I mean they are going to put it too the people again, after addressing those fears which caused the public to treat Nice with such suspicion in the first place.
Then the people will vote, and democracy will decide.
Its not like they will bring it in by the back door against the peoples will.

X

dahamsta

"Its not like they will bring it in by the back door against the peoples will."

*snort* There's already been talk of Europe modifying the Treaty (or the requirements for the Treaty) if Ireland doesn't ratify it the second time.

There is no excuse for Ahern's treatment of the electorate on this issue. Prodi pretty much said that we were against enlargment, painting us in the European public eye as a bunch of racists. Now he's pretty much saying that we were too dumb to understand the issues the first time, but he can explain it all to us in simple words, perhaps with illustrations.

Prodi's behaviour is scurrilous, but Ahern's unwillingness to stand up and defend us positively disgusts me. He should have said, straight out, that the Irish people are concerned with certain aspects of the Treaty, and rejected a second referendum until those issues are addressed.

They want to give us "assurances" that they won't dilute our neutrality any further? And they expect us to just swallow that and be done with it? They can shove their assurances where the sun don't shine, I want it written into legislation.

As to Fianna Fáil's record in Government, I'll give them some kudos for the first couple of years, but they've made a right hash of things in the last couple. The stalling of numerous Bills until just before the election was an utter - intentional - disgrace. I couldn't possibly support a party that acts in that manner. I'll agree with you on O'Rourke though. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

adam

Victor

Oooooo! Da Hamsta is leavin' all da anga out.

---

I would like to continue European integration, however I don't want to be treated like a mushroom (kept in dark and fed s***) on the matter.

Do I want expansion? Yes, I don't think many are arguing against it. However, there is scepticism that governments are going back on previous agreements and there is the fear they will do it again.

Do I want to pay more for an expanded EU. Yes I do. We have benefited from membership and others will in the future. It will open up markets for us that have, up to now, largely been dominated by Germany and Russia. While there will need to be financial accountability, I think this is accepted by everyone.

Do I want a European military? Well yes and no. I want crisis intervention, but I don't want Russian or American style military adventurism.

There is a fundamental wariness on the lack of accountability at higher levels in the EU. There is a genuine perception that there is a nice cosy club at the top, that the smaller players (at national and EU levels) are excluded from. We were promised reform when the treaty was first rejected and I haven’t seen any.

If Bertie gave half the commitment he gave to the Bertie Bowl and / or looking after pet projects and / or lining the pockets of FF cronies to Nice, we might have moved the argument forward, but we haven’t. He's about as capable of providing leadership as a headless chicken.

mike65

I just want cheaper insurance and nice football stadium...:(

Mike.

Victor

Originally posted by mike65
I just want cheaper insurance and nice football stadium...

We have what at least five(?) stadiums (Lansdowne Road, Croke Park, Cork, Thurles, Clones) with 30,000+ capacity that are underused, why do we need another (in the middle of nowhere)?

dahamsta

Oooooo! Da Hamsta is leavin' all da anga out.

DahamstaRant[TM] doesn't just have to apply to comms you know.

If Bertie gave half the commitment he gave to the Bertie Bowl and / or looking after pet projects and / or lining the pockets of FF cronies to Nice, we might have moved the argument forward, but we haven’t. He's about as capable of providing leadership as a headless chicken.

HEAR HEAR!

adam

sceptre

I mostly agree with what Victor said so I'm not going to go over that ground again.

One of Europe's biggest problems is its lack of accountability. The parliament may have been given more powers over the years but most of the power still lies with the Commission. Who aren't directly elected.

I want:
A directly elected parliament (which we have) with proper legislative powers (to be taken from the commission)

The Commission (as the executive wing) either to be directly elected (not my preferred choice) or to be nominated by the parliament.

A directly elected EU president (none of this "let's have a weak president because that's what the French/Italians want)

Proper policies on economics/fiscal things - have the FInance commissioner talking to the ECB for a change.

Above all - a commitment to democracy. The EU is more shrouded in bureaucracy than the US ffs. And an end to the EU gravy train. If MEPs want to fly economy class, then just give them the expenses for economy class, not a "no questions asked" payment for flying home business class when many of them just don't (I've been on planes sitting next to the odd MEP with business class empty, knowing that they'll pick up the change regardless)

BuffyBot

Let's hope they make a nice bang-up* job of it, like Railtrack in the UK.

adam

* Irony

Mmmmm I don't think I said anything like that - I said a *bit* more competition, not sell everything off to whoever has the most cash and f*ck the consequences and the safety concerns, as happened with British Rail...

Mind you, nothing bad seems to happen to the privatised bus network in the UK?

Victor

Originally posted by sceptre
If MEPs want to fly economy class, then just give them the expenses for economy class, not a "no questions asked" payment for flying home business class when many of them just don't (I've been on planes sitting next to the odd MEP with business class empty, knowing that they'll pick up the change regardless)

The dimwits, most airlines will give them a free upgrade. :rolleyes:

mike65

Originally posted by Victor

We have what at least five(?) stadiums (Lansdowne Road, Croke Park, Cork, Thurles, Clones) with 30,000+ capacity that are underused, why do we need another (in the middle of nowhere)?

Lansdown Road is a shack and should be for rugby only,
the GAA won't play ball with Croker and the planning laws are a big issue. Cork, Thurles and Clones would be a no-no for "soccer"
anyway, wrong places.

I'm only advocating a nice trim €150-200mill stadium with say 55,000/60,000 capacity. Not a bertie bowl.

Mike.

bonkey

Originally posted by BuffyBoy
Mind you, nothing bad seems to happen to the privatised bus network in the UK?

I wonder how subsidised it is...they pump a fortune into their privatised railways.

Deregulation of transport in Ireland wouldnt actually make that much difference, IMHO. The rail system isnt extensive enough or potentially poriftable enough to privatise it, or to add private trains to the timetable.

Similarly, Dublin traffic is so bad that barring some choice routes, there are very few areas which would be profitable to run.

Which leaves us (mostly) with inter-city, which is already deregulated really.

I'd love to see a decent transport system in Ireland, but I'm not sure anyone has figured out how to do it yet. People keep looking at models which work fine in large foreign countries and assume the same model would hold here. These things do not necessarily scale.

jc

BuffyBot

Originally posted by bonkey

Similarly, Dublin traffic is so bad that barring some choice routes, there are very few areas which would be profitable to run.

Which leaves us (mostly) with inter-city, which is already deregulated really.

Yes but there is also a lot of outside Dublin towns which have little or no bus service, apart from 1 bus a day/week provided by Bus Eireann as a social service.

It's proven successful in a few places, and a failure in others around the country, but at least open up the market and let people try

sceptre

Originally posted by Victor

The dimwits, most airlines will give them a free upgrade. :rolleyes:

I was waiting for someone to say that. True.

Victor

Originally posted by bonkey
Deregulation of transport in Ireland wouldnt actually make that much difference, IMHO.

Yes and no. Curently more than 5% of buses in Dublin are private, although substantially this is restricted to school buses, airport services and some suburban services, but the private operators do provide new services that Dublin Bus was unwilling or unable to provide. The LUAS will also be privately operated and the Railway Procurement Agency has been separated from CIE.

I imagine there is a sizeable minority of staff in Dublin Bus that are being held back by another sizeable minority of under-performing and overly-unionised (in mindset) staff. I stood at my local bus stop one lunch time and saw 12 empty and part-empty buses refuse to stop (at a bus stop with 15 people at it). this is at a stop where drivers deliberatly box in buses from other companies. These are the type of staff who are holding Dublin Bus back and refuse to agree to changes in work practices and the market structure.

I think that both private and public operators have a place in the bus market, particularly where competing services are not available.

dahamsta

Mmmmm I don't think I said anything like that - I said a *bit* more competition, not sell everything off to whoever has the most cash and f*ck the consequences and the safety concerns, as happened with British Rail...

I often come off more adversarial than I intend, my apologies. In this case I was genuinely just being sarcastic, and my failure to actually expand on the issues was left as an exercise for the reader[1].

However, the fact remains that Ireland's most recent privatisation, Telecom Eireann, has been a complete and utter failure that has left Irish consumers paying exorbitant prices for telecommunications services; and businesses - particularly indigenous businesses - at a dangerous competitive disadvantage, both in Europe and globally. It has also put our already perilous over-reliance on Enterprise at increased risk, simply because the cost of telecommunications in Ireland, factored with other disadvantages of operating in Ireland - such as the high cost of skilled employees - could outweigh the benefits of low Corporation Tax. And there is no end in sight to these problems, because the Government will not tackle the issues proactively, which - because of the mistakes - is positively mandatory at this stage of the game.

The sell-off of TE infrastructure - not to mention the advocacy of TE investments as valuable long-term opportunities[3] - was either a colossal error of judgement that implies gross incompetence, or, more likely, a perfect example of the sordid conflicts of interest that befoul Ireland[2]. A much more favourable and intelligent course of action would have been to sell off the retail divisions of TE, and retain the infrastructure with an eye to possibly privatising it at a later date; or alternatively, the privatisation of wholesale and retail divisions separately, with conditions attached disallowing future M&A. And this isn't just about hindsight: it's not as if they didn't know TE had a monopoly; and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the newly privatised company is going to be a de facto, sanctioned monopoly that will need to be watched and controlled.

I don't necessarily object to privatisation - athough it has to be said that, as I think I've made clear, I would seriously question the selling off of infrastructure, given the case studies of both TE and Railtrack[4] - I just believe there has to be far better oversight, and there has to be a demonstration that Government will learn from their mistakes. Unfortunately though, I'm very skeptical that the Government can (or even want to) learn from their mistakes, and I believe any future efforts at privatisation will be replications of the TE fiasco. And since we are left with another FF-led Government - more due to the incompetence of Opposition than competence in the incumbent - it is left to us, and not the Government, to perform oversight duties. That is quite simply wrong -- IrelandOffline shouldn't even exist, never mind find themselves defining policy for Government Departments.

[As an example, it has ultimately been left to IrelandOffline to "fix" the Government's fibre rings project, because of the positively dumbfounding omission of last-mile connectivity solutions. IrelandOffline has also found itself in the position of essentially "teaching" the Department of Public Enterprise how to mandate flat-rate Internet connectivity in Ireland, by providing examples and case studies of how it has been mandated in other countries. That ultimately led to a meeting in Italy between Irish and Italian civil servants, to try and figure it out. I ask you, if the Government was "working", would an organisation like IrelandOffline - one made up of volunteers with zero previous experience in either politics or telecommunications - ever find themselves in this position?]

Bertie and FF are very keen to keep things behind the scenes, to hide it all away from the public, either intentionally or possibly in the mistaken belief that the Irish public will not understand[5]. This has to be stop. There has to be more transparency and accountability at every level of Government, from the Taoiseach through the Cabinet, right down to the Departments, Offices and civil servants. There has to be more oversight committees, more oversight hearings, more oversight reports; all in the public eye, all available so that citizens are in a position where they can at least try to understand. I'm not talking about, or asking for, nor do I even want more tribunals, where the only people who win are the barristers that charge extortianate fees for their services. I just want oversight. It's not asking for much, is it?

adam

[1] I was stirring.
[2] I obviously sway heavily towards the latter, particularly given the political presence on the then Eircom Board.
[3] I accept that stocks and shares are a risk, however the Government put some very dodgy spin on the offering.
[4] And Railtrack has proven that even the separation approach mightn't work. It certainly hasn't work for rail in the UK.
[5] I don't believe the latter for a second.

mike65

This morning I heard Dermot Ahern without prompting highlight the fact Ireland is being left behind in broadband comms. The idiot Vincent Browne sounded surprised this would have anything to do with communications, that aside the fact Ahern mentioned the net at all suggests things may be about to take a turn for the better.

Mike.

BuffyBot

dahamsta: no apology needed

What I'm saying is that privatisation isn't always and in some areas it has been beneficial.

Though god help us, they should leave the ESB alone :rolleyes:

dahamsta

dahamsta: no apology needed

Oh. I'm sorry for apologising.

What I'm saying is that privatisation isn't always and in some areas it has been beneficial.

Oh, absolutely. In fact the core of the problem isn't privatisation at all, but intelligent implementation. By that I mean monitoring, tough antitrust legislation, and a certain degree of market control through regulation. Unfortunately, our Government seem to have replaced the word "intelligent" with "dodgy". The ODTR is a perfect example: They privatised the telecommunications infrastructure, but they left the Regulator virtually powerless, and worse, they appointed a reactive Regulator. In such a snail-like marketplace, that's just asking for trouble.

And when the problems are brought to their attention, they duck and dive and spin like tops. The ODTR's Quarterly Report today was a prime example[1], it was filled with damning facts about the marketplace, yet the spin doctors pulled out all the glowing pretty ones for the press release. Seriously, which would you prefer: hard facts and a commitment to correct the problems; or guff sweetness and light?[2]

If the Government used their heads, they could divest themselves of pretty much everything tomorrow, with little or no adverse affects. But instead of actually thinking, they tend to run to their PR agencies and handlers before they'll even consider anything. Again, it's not difficult to install transparency and accountability, and it won't kill anyone. People are able to deal with hard facts, they're perfectly capable of differentiating between a bad Government looking good and a good Government looking bad. Of course, in this election, they had little choice, the Opposition simply dug their own graves, jumped in and pulled the dirt in after themselves.

Though god help us, they should leave the ESB alone

The ESB is a tricky one really, I don't know what could be done with it. I mean, the market's been deregulated for what? four years now, and nobody seems to think Ireland is worth the hassle. That suggests to me that privatising the company - at least if they follow the TE model, which is almost a given - is simply a Bad Idea. It's also a perfect example of the sad corporate world we live in now, as is the comms market. Corporations don't want to come to Ireland because we're not big enough, there's not enough money here, even in light of the fact that there's profits to be had. It's quite sad really, that greed has become so natural to these corporations, that there's no pride in big business any more.

All that being said, let's be honest, the ESB don't appear to be that bad a company. They seem to be pretty efficient -- even more so since the threat of dergulation reared it's head. I wonder if we'd be better off leaving well alone to get on with the job in hand.

adam


[1] See the IrelandOffline forum for more.
[2] Rhetorical.