FINE GAEL CAMPAIGN:THE LOCAL elections will be decided on the Government's handling of the economy and the State's finances, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has said.
Predicting that the party would make historic gains in the June 5th poll, he said: “All of the local issues that would normally arise in local elections, arising from brush-cutting to potholes, lights and street-corners have literally been blown off the map by the concerns that people have for their future.”
He was speaking at the launch of the party's local election manifesto, Local Strength, National Recovery, which promises to cut the cost of local authorities, and to make them the driver for job creation.
“The manifesto is based on our belief that we will win the next general election; that we will implement these programmes based on change, based on our ability to get the country back to work,” Mr Kenny said.
Pressed on a prediction, the party’s director of elections, Frank Flannery, said Fine Gael would break the 300-seat barrier which it narrowly missed in the 2004 elections, and become the largest party on councils.
“Fine Gael took over one-third of all of the seats on city and county borough councils off 27 per cent of the vote. It was quite a remarkable result, so we are somewhat cautious now in our projections. However, we have prepared very well for these elections.
“We have, if anything, a better slate of candidates now, 2004 was a building block for our 2007 general election. We got a lot of new TDs in on the basis of the local elections. We are using the elections this year as a building block for the next general election.
“We are confident that we will break the 300 barrier this time. We failed to break it last time. We may do better than that. It is far too early to say, and we are confident that we will be the largest party in local government. That will be a new one, and a major breakthrough,” he said.
He particularly highlighted Fine Gael’s 155 women candidates. “We are confident that we will elect at least a hundred of them. Some parties run women candidates as token gestures, but we are running with a view to getting as many as possible of them elected.”
Every local council controlled by Fine Gael will set up “one-stop shops” to “revolutionise” the services available to people trying to set up new businesses, or trying to protect jobs that they have already created.
Over 80 quangos – “some of the countless new agencies set up in recent years” – will be abolished, and staff redeployed, resulting “in millions of taxpayers’ money being saved by ceasing unnecessary duplication of services”.
Small- and medium-sized businesses employ 800,000 people. “Instead of working hard to support these businesses the Government is crippling them with high utility costs such as electricity, gas and waste,” the manifesto notes.
Promising improved planning guidelines, the party states: “Bad planning is a blight on Irish society.
“It can lead to increased crime and anti-social behaviour, reduced quality family time and it suffocates business.”
Proper transport services will be a condition of future planning permissions, while councils should have tougher powers to levy heavy fines on developers to force them to complete estates.
Planning appeals should be speeded up, while already-issued permissions should exist for seven, not five years.
“Boy racers” should be banned from driving around estates in “souped-up” cars with loud exhausts and blacked-out windows which “frighten and intimidate those in their vicinity”.
The legal limit exhaust noise is 80 decibels, yet roadside checks have revealed readings of up to 130 decibels, the manifesto states, promising to give gardaí better equipment to remove offenders from the road.
Going local: election pledges
- Cut VAT rates
- Freeze business rates for five years
- Ban cars with loud exhausts, and blacked-out windows
- Waiver schemes for waste charges should be run by common national rules, not those set by each council
- Grants to reduce pollution from 380,000 septic tanks
- Fines for owners of dilapidated buildings
- More cycle paths, and bicycle-parking places.
- More "park and rides" adjacent to quality bus corridors in Dublin.
- Reduce paperwork for farmers
- Ban sprawling housing estates