Gilmore warns against majority FG government

A majority Fine Gael government would impose further cuts in child benefit and a range of other “hidden” taxes, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore claimed today.

As the election campaign entered its final week, there appeared to be no let-up in the row between the prospective government parties.

Mr Gilmore said voters faced two choices next Friday; either to elect a single-party Fine Gael government which would impose a raft of cutbacks or to elect a government that included Labour which would place an emphasis on jobs and fairness.

His warning against single-party government echoed the famous stance taken by former Progressive Democrat leader Michael McDowell in the 2002 election.

However, Fine Gael’s education spokesman Fergus O’Dowd hit back at Mr Gilmore’s claims, saying Labour's attacks on his party “smacked of panic and desperation”.

“Today, the Labour Party was supposed to launch its youth manifesto. Instead, it decided to highlight and attack Fine Gael’s own plans on third level education,” he said.

"Voters are entitled to know why Labour still refuses to promote its own failed policies. Clearly, Labour’s policies do not stand up to scrutiny. Too many of their proposals are uncosted and backed-up with vague evidence."

Mr Gilmore was speaking in Dún Laoghaire where he launched the party's new poster campaign criticising Fine Gael's proposals for funding third level education.

The campaign claims Fine Gael is planning to impose a “graduate tax” on students to fund one-third of the cost of a college course. Labour says this would saddle young people with debt and act as a disincentive to staying in Ireland.

Separately today, Fine Gael unveiled plans to introduce a new social welfare payment system to target fraud which the party claimed would save €1 billion over its first three years in government.

As part of its plan to create a smaller, more efficient public sector, Fine Gael wants to establish a payments and entitlements service (PES) to process citizen entitlements by merging the existing 20 Government bodies which process welfare payments.

“In the same way that Fine Gael has declared ‘all-out’ war on white collar crime and rogue bankers, we will target welfare fraud and secure savings of €1 billion by year three of a new government,” the party’s enterprise spokesman Richard Bruton said.

He said the party could double the outgoing Government’s existing target for fraud of €500 million by introducing a range of targeted new policies, including powers to reduce or remove benefits to those caught defrauding the system.

The party also wants to pilot a control system which stores a photograph of the owner of each PPS number on a secure central database accessible by social welfare staff.

Green Party education spokesperson Paul Gogarty today pledged his party would conduct a comprehensive review of the teaching of Irish at primary and second level.

“Terms of reference will be drawn up to develop a well-planned and modern approach to language acquisition by Irish pupils, based on the most up to date language acquisition methods. Greater emphasis will also be placed on general competence in spoken Irish,” he said.

Speaking at the launch of Sinn Féin's election proposals on natural resources, Dublin Mid West candidate Eoin Ó Broin pledged his party would renegotiate existing oil and gas contracts, including that held by Shell for the Corrib Gas field, to give the State a 51 per cent shareholding.

He added that Sinn Féin would oppose any attempt to sell-off more public assets as part of the EU/IMF bailout for the banks.