PROPOSED MEASURES to reform local government are “very superficial” and the “Achilles’ heel” of Fine Gael and Labour’s programme for government, a group established to monitor all parties’ political commitments has said.
Reformcard.com, which rated the political reform proposals of each of the parties in advance of the election, yesterday published its scoring assessment of the programme for government.
It was given a score of 68 out of 100 by the group’s panel of academics, based on five areas of proposed reform. They were the Oireachtas, elections, open government, the public sector and local government.
The rating compares to a score of 74.5 for the Fine Gael election manifesto, and 68 for Labour’s, highlighting key differences between the parties.
The panel noted a number of features of the manifestos that failed to make the programme for government, including Fine Gael’s proposal that the ceann comhairle be elected by secret ballot.
A member of the academic panel, Dr Eoin O’Malley of DCU, said the programme’s score on reforming the dominance of the executive was “particularly poor”.