FIANNA Fail was "wrong" and "acted against its better judgment" by agreeing to establish the Office of the Tanaiste in 1992, the party's environment spokesman, Mr Noel Dempsey, has said.
At a press conference in Dublin yesterday to announce that his party in government would "dismantle the redundant super-structures imposed on the State and the taxpayer by the Rainbow", Mr Dempsey said the Office of the Tanaiste was "part of the price" of going into coalition with Labour. The demand had been "non-negotiable", he added.
Both Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats have said they will scrap the office, but not the title, of the Tanaiste.
However, the Minister of State at the Office of the Tanaiste described the proposal to abolish the office as "a slur on dedicated public servants".
"In 4 1/2 years this office, with a small staff of civil servants and just three advisers, has won respect across the public service for the amount of work it has achieved and the calibre of the public servants who have successfully delivered on that work," Ms Eithne Fitzgerald said.
It set up the National Economic and Social Forum; prepared the Ethics in Public Office Act and the Freedom of Information Act; chaired the tasks force on long-term unemployment; has worked on Ireland's bid to host the Special Olympics World Games in 2003; chaired the task force on violence against women; and jointly managed, with the Northern Ireland Civil Service, the International Fund for Ireland's Communities in Action and Community Leadership programmes.
This was at a total cost of £1.303 million, £406,000 of which was for the National Economic and Social Forum, where Fianna Fail and the PDs played an active part, Ms Fitzgerald added.
Meanwhile, Mr Dempsey said Fianna Fail would, if elected to power, amend the Electoral Act "to ensure political parties are not bankrolled with taxpayers' money, beyond existing funding for parliamentary back-up and research".
Under the Act, which was passed shortly before the dissolution of the 27th Dail, £1 million in State funding would be available for parties and Independent candidates who win at least 5 per cent of the first-preference vote.
Existing proposals on disclosure of £500 or more to an individual politician and £4,000 or more to political parties will be implemented, he said.
The party would also "slash the wasteful array of advisers, handlers and hangers-on that have attached themselves to every party of the Rainbow in Government", Mr Dempsey said.
Claiming that £34 million was spent on the existing structure of advisers, public relations consultants and handlers, he accused Labour of insisting on appointing "a vast array" of such people. Fine Gael and Democratic Left, which "denounced Labour's appointment spree", had rapidly followed suit in Government.