After three months of negotiations, Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats yesterday published a revised Programme for Government, providing an agreed workload for at least another two years. The document is almost twice as long as the original, but far less specific. Its aspirational nature is explained on the grounds that it is to be read in conjunction with commitments given in the original programme in 1997. But when politicians are not advancing across open ground they are invariably in retreat, and the absence of specific pledges, particularly in relation to reductions of the top and standard rates of income taxation, may mark a gradual erosion of earlier undertakings. This would be understandable, given recommendations from the Economic and Social Research Institute and the National Economic and Social Council in the context of negotiations on a new, three-year social partnership agreement.
The negotiators of the new programme maintain that the original pledges to reduce the top rate of income tax to 42 per cent (40 per cent in favourable circumstances) and the standard rate to 20 per cent still stand. It is also intended that 80 per cent of workers should pay tax at the lower rate, they say. But the Coalition Government is actually losing ground on the latter commitment; less than 40 per cent of workers are now paying tax at the standard rate, compared to 41 per cent after its first budget.
There is no gainsaying the progress that has been made on some fronts by the Coalition Government. An estimated 160,000 new jobs have been created since 1997 in a booming economy and, in a parallel development, the level of crime has fallen by about 25 per cent. A large Government surplus has been generated and a great deal of money has been invested in education, in physical infrastructure and in social services. And the coming Budget is expected to deliver assistance to families in the area of child care and in relation to tax charges on an inherited family home.
But difficulties remain. Many young families are unable to afford homes and the shortage of accommodation has caused a potential bubble in the property market. There is an unacceptable level of adult illiteracy. And deprivation and exclusion operate to the detriment of poor urban and rural communities. The commitment to full employment in the document is less radical than it appears because the Government has taken an unemployment level of 5 per cent as its baseline. The figure is already at 6 per cent and dropping fast. The need for root and branch reform at the Department of Agriculture was re-emphasised in recent days by the shabby treatment of Emerald Meats, which may yet cost the State millions of pounds in damages. But the Government has backed away from its original commitment to establish an independent agency to administer EU agricultural funding. Instead, the Minister for Agriculture will retain general policy direction of the new agency within his Department.
The two parties may be working well in Government, but suspicion and distrust still exist in the shadow of the Flood and Moriarty tribunals. Because of that, the Progressive Democrats are determined to fight the next general election as an independent party. And Minister of State, Ms Liz O'Donnell, had no hesitation yesterday in offering her opinion that Mr John Ellis should consider his position as chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture. Such is the "realpolitik" of coalition life.