FOR the first time, Pat Rabbitte is going into an election defending a government, and he defends it with the simple certainty with which he condemned previous ones.
"What is shaping up is the most definite offer that has been put before the people since 1973", he says. "You can have the existing centre left cohesive government or you can have the alternative of a centre right combination of parties that have in the past not been able to tolerate each other's presence in the same room and have ended in ignominious collapse. That's the choice."
His party is no longer advocating a traditional socialist command economy, he says. That debate is all over. What Democratic Left is about now is controlling untrammelled market forces, supporting consumers' rights and tackling inequality. As for whether they are social democrats or democratic socialists, he says those's labels are not well understood these days.
"If I go for either of the labels I'm not so sure anybody would know precisely what it means now. The debate about all this is still going on, but certainly we describe ourselves as a democratic socialist party."
The control of market forces is not just an aspiration of democratic socialists but is a demand of consumers throughout Europe, he says. "Consumers are beginning to assert themselves. Consumers are asserting that they have rights as consumers to a safe environment, safe food, safe blood and a good quality of life."
At this stage can you point to clear differences and distinctions between yourselves and the Labour Party?
"I think if I could I probably wouldn't do so. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to appear on an inside page of The Irish Times but I don't want to appear on the front page under a headline: `Rabbitte chides Labour'".
Why do Democratic Left and Labour exist as separate parties? What reason would you give the electorate for the existence of two separate parties?
"I suppose history is the explanation. The two parties have evolved at a different time and from a different background. The Democratic Left evolution has been the far more painful, but I think we now have the nucleus of a serious modern left wing party that advocates and espouses the cause of the underdog in Irish society."
Labour and Democratic Left have come from different backgrounds, but is it not the case that they are evolving towards the same political ground? In the future can there be two different political grounds occupied by Labour and Democratic Left?
"If there is room for more than one brand of Coke in the conservative space of Irish politics, why is there not space for two brands of Guinness in the left wing? I've never been able to understand the argument that there isn't."
But it has been regularly argued by many - including Democratic Left - that those parties in the "conservative space should merge and coalesce. You have made that argument about those parties, so does it not also apply to the left?
"My own constituency [Dublin South West] is a good example of the argument I've been making. If the three left wing deputies in my constituency were members of the same party, would they have been elected?
"The Labour Party and Democratic Left have worked very well in government together, contrary to all predictions. But we are distinctive and different parties. I'm reluctant for all of the obvious reasons while I am in government with Labour to start instancing issues.
"But, for example, it is well asserted that Democratic Left has a more revisionist position on Northern Ireland than does the Labour Party, who would have a more traditionally nationalist approach to politics in Northern Ireland. There is a very distinct difference of emphasis there.
"I THINK the combination of the present three parties in government have been a very productive combination vis a vis Northern Ireland and I really don't want to start pointing to particular economic issues. The chemistry between the present three parties is working very well."
He needs just one invitation to have a good go at the Progressive Democrats. He cites the regularly stated "appalling vista" of the left, which sees Michael McDowell and Charlie McCreevy in the driving seat in government. He also has a go at the party pledged to control public spending for its promises on group water schemes.
"The PDs and Bobby Molloy seem to have reverted to typed in terms of their handling of the group water schemes issue. I'm quite sure that wherever Michael McDowell is he will require resuscitation - Bobby Molloy and Mary Harney would seem to have reverted to the one true fold.
"Not even Fianna Fail have, made the kind of profligate promise on group water schemes that the PDs have indulged in. Bobby Molloy said he would give them £23 million or whatever they want. That was the formal statement. So I hesitate in ascribing ideology to them. It would seem to be the ideology of `by Jaysus I'll get back to the cabinet table if it kills me and whatever is expedient we'll promise it in the interim'."
He reels off what he says are the achievements of Democratic Left in Government. "The discharging of the State's liabilities to 70 or 80,000 women who were cheated out of their equal treatment entitlements to the extent of some £260 million. We paid that.
"I would point to the extraordinary transformation that has taken place in child benefit which was a very deliberate strategy of the Minister for Social Welfare to focus on child poverty. I would point to his emphasis on the creation of the anti poverty strategy and that for the first time that constituency is represented in the Partnership 2000 agreement. I would point to the housing regeneration under Liz McManus and a number of innovative schemes in conjunction with housing agencies.
"In my own area I would point to the Consumer Credit Act which has brought a very significant revolution in consumer affairs and consumer rights, eradicated the scourge of illegal money lending. The Credit Union Bill was promised for 12 or 14 years and I started from scratch and produced the first significant stand alone Bill to guide the work of credit unions.
"I would point to the publication of the first White Paper conscience and technology in the history of the State - a critical area concerning the shape of our modern economy. It's the first time ever that has been done.
"And of course the abolition of water charges."
In one of his own areas - consumer affairs - he says he has put a definite Democratic Left stamp on legislation. The Consumer Credit Act has a partisan pro consumer ethos and contains many measures that would not have been included by a centre right government. This major piece of consumer legislation was inherited from his predecessor, Mary O'Rourke, but had 503 amendments made to it.
"One that caused some furore at the time was the imposition on the financial institutions and the banks of a £25,000 fee to accompany applications for new charges or increases in charges. More important than that £25,000 to accompany each application is the statutory imposition on the banks to make a commercial justification to the Director of Consumer Affairs each time they seek a new charge or an increase in an existing charge.
"In most cases the view of consumers is that there is a myriad of bank charges that are no more than a contrivance to take additional profit from this market in Ireland. I would instance that [as an example of Democratic Left inspired legislation].
"Running through the Consumer Credit Act is, I would argue, a partisan consumer position, areas like money lending, like the provision on home mortgages, clarity of information for consumers that they weren't, entitled to before, disbarring credit institutions from contacting consumers at their place of work - all that kind of thing.
"THESE were all in the amendments. It is a very partisan Act. The balance struck is a balance I don't believe would have been struck by a centre right government."
He candidly admits a major failure.
"I have failed and the Government has failed to make a sufficiently serious impact on long term unemployment. What we have is the best job creation performance in the history of the industrialisation of this State, cheek by jowl with endemic horrible long term unemployment and it is sometimes difficult to explain that to the people caught in unemployment blackspots."
He suggests that some of his Cabinet colleagues have blunted the effect of programmes designed to alleviate the problem. "As soon as you come up with a good idea to target resources and mechanisms on unemployment blackspots, everyone around the Cabinet table puts their hand up, and says `I want one too'. So you end up with measures that were designed for unemployment areas, but there has to be one for everyone in the audience."
For every constituency represented at the Cabinet table?
"For every constituency, and the fact of the matter is that being unemployed in the large urban areas of concentrated unemployment is not like being unemployed along the west coast or in certain other parts of Ireland. I'm not disputing that there is unemployment in those parts. I'm not saying that unemployment is congenial in those parts. But I'm saying that it is certainly a more intractable and different phenomenon in the urban conurbations."
Are you saying that the focus of the measures to combat long term unemployment has been geographically diffused more than it ought to be?
"Yes, yes I am ... I have come to the unequivocal conclusion that long term unemployment in Ireland is clustered and that in framing incentives we must take into account the geographical factor.
"The Local Employment Service (LES) is probably the most significant thing that we have done in this regard. It is a local agency whose job is to compile a register on a micro basis of jobs falling vacant among local employers, and to match that employer's requirement with a local person.
"I think this Government has tussled very seriously, as the confidential papers will some time show, in trying to address how these blackspots are virtually unplugged from this economy. We have come up with a number of measures that are certainly making a contribution. For example, the back to work allowance will have in 1997 21,000 people on it. That's a lot of people. The Jobstart programme was an initiative to bring 5,000 people on a recurring basis per annum.
"It has been very slow to take off and there are questions to be asked as to why it has been slow to take off."
Having published the State's first White Paper on science and technology last year, he is aware of criticism from universities that it looks more like a charter for industry rather than a broader charter for scientific research. But while the universities have a case, he says, encouraging research in industry is a priority.
This is one of the perennial questions in any discussion of science and technology policy. The basic research community feel inadequately funded in Ireland.
"I have doubled the funding that is available to them. I don't argue that it is sufficient, but I have to have regard to the fact that we are a relatively small country. I have to balance the resources that we can put at the disposal of pure research compared to the emphasis on other parts of the chain, such as applied research, research and development, the generation of new products and processes, the stimulation of indigenous industry to take up the innovation message to invest in research and development.
"There is still too little spent on research and development in this economy. It is growing but it is still behind the OECD average. It's very difficult to please everyone in the science and technology community. You have to strike a balance. I think the industrial dimension of it is extremely important."
WHILE science has got a relatively high priority from this Government, he agrees that it is not guaranteed to remain in that situation. In times of fiscal rectitude, governments might feel tempted to look at science and technology spending and cut it back.
New structures, an inter Departmental committee which oversees science spending and the forthcoming national science council should make that option more difficult, he says. "Certainly they won't be able to do it without one hell of a row. Now there are structures going right to the Cabinet and across Departments to address these questions, and in addition to that I will in the next two or three weeks be announcing a national science council.
Money, he says, is not the major requirement to improve the level of scientific research in Ireland. "The major issue is the primacy it has been given in Government planning and Government policy. The happenstance of my being at the Cabinet table has certainly helped - it is such an important area that it does require a permanent champion at the Cabinet table. A particular case can be made for spending on basic research but generally speaking money is not the main problem - there is a culture in Ireland that doesn't appreciate the science and technology imperative."
AT Rabbitte is currently steering the Credit Union Bill through the Dail.
The credit unions have opposed the proposal to put a cap of £20,000 on credit union loans. While saying he is willing to consider changing that cap, he rejects other criticisms of the Bill.
"I'm very proud of the Credit Union Bill. I think it will stand the test of time and allow the credit unions to grow and offer a new range of services and provide a very significant stream of competition for the orthodox financial institutions in the particular area of short to medium term personal finance.
"I do not believe the credit unions should be in the area of commercial lending. I do not believe they should seek to become banks or building societies. I am prepared to look at the ceiling of £20,000 on loans - but I do not believe there are too many credit union members who have more than £40,000 in savings job put into the credit union. I have figures in terms of the number of credit union members around the country who have deposits in excess of £40,000 and loans in excess of £20,000 and I can tell you that they are very small.
"Overall I believe it is fundamentally important to protect the character and ethos of the credit, union movement. They are not banks they are not building societies, they are self help organisations that have done tremendous work for their own communities and that should be protected."
Pat Rabbitte is not tired of his present portfolio, and has no burning ambition to move on just yet. "My interest is in the economic area. This is a most exciting area to work in. This is not an area in which I have been burned out in any way. I would like the opportunity to be back here."
Back to the election, defending the Government and forming the next. He says he does not believe the three party leaders have yet sat down to discuss how to conduct the campaign, but believes he knows what will happen when they do.
"It seems to me that it is inescapable that the Government will fight the election together on its record of unprecedented job creation, the economic feel good factor, as well as a whole number of social measures that have been put in place such as the measure piloted by my constituency colleague, Mervyn Taylor, on divorce, and we will fight it as a Government.
"Whether we will fight it on a common platform is something that hasn't even been discussed and I would have thought it is more likely that the Coalition will fight the election as three different parties with an electoral pact and a voting pact between the parties."
The question of going into government with Fianna Fail in the future "has never arisen, and I find it hard to envisage it. My own party has not sought to get into power at any cost."