With the exception of reform of upward only rent review (now less relevant with rising market rates) and Universal health care (which was a pipedream given the vested intersts), it appears that this government's mandate has been completed (though please highlight any policy which has not been delivered yet or won't be). Already labour have mentioned they have to wait fit the next Dail, for the next abortion referendum because they don't have a mandate. 2014 has not been a good year for Enda Kenny, who has lost the guiding hand of the troika, Phil hogan, Alan shatter, frank flannery.
No one in the last ejection voted for Joan burton as tanaiste or labour leader; shouldn't the people be given the opportunity to vote for/against labour TDs?
Just what - apart from power/patronage/pensions - is this government hanging on for?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/polit...tion-1.1846861 (Enda Kenny asks civil servants to come up with ideas)
http://www.thejournal.ie/labour-abor...37040-Aug2014/
(Labour: we done abortion for now)
http://www.thejournal.ie/alan-kelly-...56715-Jul2014/
(Alan Kelly: people don't thank us enough for doing the job)
From the document Labour and FG say "Government that will be built on partnership and parity of esterm between our two parties. Its key objective will be to repair our society over the next 5 years and get our people back to work."
"The Government for National Recovery will strive to ensure that every one of our citizens has an effective right, free from discrimination, to contribute to the economic, social and cultural life of the nation."
Some Highlights/Observations
"We will seek reduced interest rate as part of credible re-commitment to reducing Gov deficits to ensure sustainability of our public finances".
Emergency finance for banks will be replaced with "medium-term affordable, official financing".
"We will end further asset transfers to NAMA"
Gov will seek to dispose of Gov stakes in banks as soon as possible.
A jobs fund to be created within the first 100 days which will
- Provide 15,000 additional places in training, work experience and educational opportunities
- Cut vat from 13.5% to 12% up to end of 2013
- Halve the lower rate (8.5%) of PRSI up to end of 2013 on jobs paying up to €356 per week
FAS to be replaced with a new National Employment and Entitlements Service to be managed by the Dept of Social Protection.
Copyright and Intellectual Property laws to be changed including new provision of fair-use in copyright, Gov will put more of it's functions online and invest more in cloud computing. More supports for the gaming industry will also happen.
Bankruptcy laws will be changed "to bring us in line with best international standards, focusing on a flexible personal bankruptcy system that reduces discharge time for honest bankrupts".
Government will legislate to end upward-only rents.
Gov Departments will be required to publish Regulatory Impact Assessments before Government decisions are taken.
Constitutional Reform
- Abolition of the Seanad
- Amendment to constitution to reverse Abbeylara decision on Oireachtas powers of enquiry.
- An amendment to allow confidentialitiy between constituents and public representatives.
- An amendment to allow Judges' salaries to be cut
- Childrens right's referendum will go ahead.
Under broader constitutional reform
- Review of Dail electoral system
- Reduce the President's term to 5 years
- Provision for same-sex marriage
- Amending clause on women in the home
- Removing blasphemy from the constitution
- "possible" reduction in the voting age
Political Reform
- Reduce number of committees
- Role for Ceann Comhairle on deciding if Minister has answered question in parliament
- Ministers salaries reduced, political expenses vouched for severance payments for ministers will be axed
- No pensions to sitting TDs and no future retiring politician will get a pension until they've reached retiring age.
- Freedom of Information Act will be amended back to what it was previously, with it's remit extended to other public bodies including the Gardai "subject to security exceptions".
- Whistleblowers legislation will be introduced.
- Limits on political donations to be lowered to €2,500 for parties and €1000 for individuals, and disclosure will be required on sums above €1500 to parties and €600 to individual politicans.
- Ban on corporate donations to political parties
- Statuatory register of lobbyists, and rules on practice of lobbying
- Electoral commission will take over functions of existing bodies and Dept of Environment
- New Investigations, Overight and Petitions Committee of the Oireachtas.
- Funding for political parties will be tied to the level of participation by woman as candidates in those parties.
Dail Reform
- Commitees will be allowed introduce legislation
- Dail sitting days will be increased by 50%
- Backbenchers will be allowed introduce legislation under a ten-minute rule in the Oireachtas
- Fridays will be dedicated committee reports and private-members business.
- Gov will be allowed public general schemes of a Bill so Oireachtas Committees can debate and hold hearings at an early stage
- To ensure bills can't be rushed through, standing orders to be amended to ensure minimum of two weeks in between each stage of a bill, with exceptions in certain circumstances
- Every fourth week will be a committee week, where Dail will only sit in plenary for leader questions and the order of business.
- Petition system will be introduced similar to one in the European Parliament
Financial Scrutiny
- New Fiscal Advisory Council seperated from fiscal decision-makers in Government will undertake fiscal macroeconomic projections and monitoring.
- Council will report to Dail and the public
- Every purchase order above €20,000 will be published online
- Comprehensive Spending review to examine all area of public expenditure.
- Comptroller and Auditor general will be given extra powers to carry out value-for-money audits of State programmes.
Local Government
- Community and enterprise support agency roles to be moved back to local government.
- Role of County Manager will be abolished and replaced with Chief Executives with a limited range of executive functions. Main function will be to ensure implementation of democratically decided policy.
- More decision making to be devolved to local-level.
- FixMyStreet.ie website will be launched to allow residents report issues in their local area
- Local enterprise and job support functions of local, regional and national agencies will be merged into a single business and enterprise section within each local authority.
Public Sector Reform
- Reduce the total number of public sector employees between 18,000 and 20,000 by 2013, and to reduce this by a further 4,000 in 2015.
- Department of An Taoiseach to be reduced in size, to become a Cabinet Office that oversees the delivery of the Programme for Government
- New talent and skills will be brought into the Department of Finance
- All appoints to government departments at Pricipal Officer and above will be open to external competition.
Open Government
- Agency boards will be scrapped and agency managers will report directly to Ministers
- No more "golden handshakes" for public servants who have failed to deliver
- Go beyond Bord Snip Nua recommendations and ensure public service can share back-office functions and resources ofr IT, HR, payments and entitlements, business inspections and procurement.
FAIRNESS
Health
- Universal Health Insurance with equal access to care for all.
- No discrimination between patients on the grounds of income or insurance status.
- "Two-tier" system of unequal access will end.
- Universal Health Insurance will not be subject to European or national competition law.
- Risk equalisation will be introduced to current insurance market
- Patient Safety Authority will be introduced
- Minister for Health will be responsible for health policy
- HSE will cease to exist "over time" with functions to be returned to the Minister for Health OR to the Universal Health Insurance system. Staff will be redeployed accordingly.
- Universal Health Insurance will remove GP fees within life of Government
- Universal Primary Care will be introduced in phases.
- GP training placesd will be increased
- New GP contract will provide incentives to GPs to care more intensively for patients
Hospitals
- Hospitals will no longer be managed by the HSE, they will be independent not-for-profit trusts with managers accountable to their boards. Boards will include representatives of local communites and staff.
- Smaller hospitals may combine into a local hospital network with share management.
- Hospitals will be paid according to how they deliver.
- Public hospitals will be compensated for running emergency rooms and training health-care professionals.
- Existing policy of co-location of private hospitals on public hospital lands will cease. Tax incentives for private hospital developments will also cease.
Education
- Gov will invest in a targetted early childhood education programme for disadvantaged children
- Junior and Leaving certs will be reformed to encourage greater innovation and independent learning. Maths and Science teaching will be reformed. Science will be a compulsory subject for Junior Cert by 2014.
- Bonus points for Maths will be introduced at Leaving Cert for Maths and Science courses.
- Government will consider the question of whether Irish should be optional at Leaving Certificate only after other reforms around the Irish language have occurred.
- DIT's move to Grangegorman will be supported, establishment of a Technical University in the South East will be explored.
Home Owners
- Increasing mortgage interest relief to 30% for First Time Buyers in 2004-08 (from the current sliding scale of 20% to 25% depending on the year the mortgage was taken out), financed in part by bringing forward the abolition of relief for new
buyers from June 2011.
- Introducing a two year moratorium on repossessions of modest family homes where a family makes an honest effort to pay their mortgage.
- MABS to be put on a more legal footing with greater responsibility.
Crime
- Government will create a DNA database
- Gov will ensure administrative duties are carried out by civilian staff in order to free up highly trained Gardaí for preventing and detecting crime.
- Where judges are considering a sentence of 1 year or less, they'll be encouraged to look at alternatives to prison
- Gov will end the practice of imprisoning people who cannot pay fines and debts and introduce a system which takes a small amount of money from wages or social welfare by “attachment order” to pay off a fine or debt over time, as an alternative to imprisonment for people who refuse to pay.
- Gov will review plan to build prison at Thornton Hall and look at other cheaper alternatives, it will also end the practise of sending children to St Patricks Institution.
Law Reform
- Judicial Council, with lay representation, will provide an effective mechanism for dealing with complaints against judges.
- As soon as resources as permit, Gov will introduce a constitutional amendment to allow for the establishment of a distinct and separate system of family courts to streamline family law court processes and make them more efficient and less costly.
- Commercial Court to facilitate speedy resolution of disputes at Circuit Court level, where monies in dispute do not warrant High Court jurisdiction.
- Reform and modernise aspects of family law.
Poverty
- Social Welfare rates will be maintained.
- Government will overturn the reduction in the minimum wage.
- Gov will take a zero-tolerance approach to welfare-fraud.
Equality
- Gov will take steps to ensure that all State boards have at least 40% of each gender.
- Gov will ensure that trans-gender people will have legal recognition and extend the protections of the equality legislation to them.
Foreign Affairs
- Gov will recall Ireland’s Ambassadors within 100 days of this new government for briefings on a new approach to promoting and marketing Ireland as a country to do business in.
- Gov is committed to the 0.7% of GNP target for Overseas Development Aid. Gov will seek to achieve this by 2015.
- Gov will seek to establish a Civilian Corps, which could allow some job seekers use and share their skills in developing countries while retaining some job seeker’s benefit.
- In times of humanitarian crises, we will unite NGOs that provide humanitarian aid to create a single appeals mechanism for national fundraising and public response. This will maximise publicity for the cause, the receipt of emergency funds and ensure the effective and co-ordinated dispersal of emergency aid. The State will financially support these NGOs in their response.
Peat - excemption for turf-cutting to be allowed in 75 designated areas on the country.
Communications
- Gov will review and update Intellectual Property legislation currently in place to benefit innovation, develop a National Intellectual Property protocol to give clarity about terms on which business can access IP created in Higher Education Institutions, and clarify legislation relating to online copyright infringement and enforcement of rights relating to digital communications.
- TV License to become Public Broadcasting Charge
- Gov will review the funding of public and independent broadcasters to ensure a healthy broadcasting environment in Ireland.
- Competition to be brought into the Postal market, An Post to be assigned universal service obligation for 20 years.
Transport
- Gov to establish a Cabinet sub-committee on Infrastructure to explore the benefits to the public transport
passenger of more diverse bus service provision.
- Funding will be provided on a once off basis to repair damage done to non-national roads due to
recent severe weather conditions.
- Gov will review and update the regulation of taxis to ensure that taxi services are recognized as a
key component of the public transport system and we will provide for a forum for discussion
between the regulatory authorities and taxi providers.
- Gov will continue to invest in the National Cycle Policy and we will look to extend the Dublin
Bikes Scheme across the wider Dublin area and to other cities and integrate the scheme much
more effectively with public transport links
- Gov will work with the Aviation Regulator to cut airport charges in order to deliver increased
routes, airlines and passenger numbers.
Agriculture
- Gov will enact the Fair Trade Act, which will ban a number of unfair trading practices in the retail sector such as ‘hello money’ which suppliers have to pay to secure a place for their goods on supermarket shelves.
- Farm diesel will be excluded from further increases in the carbon tax.
- A single food safety and monitoring agency will be created.
The document in full has now been released in electronic form, and here it is:
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Credit for list: http://www.politics.ie/forum/current...rnment-25.html