Programme for government and Senate results

June 5th, 2002 | by aobaoill |

The new programme for government, just issued by Fianna Fáil and the PDs, isn’t the most radical of documents, but does have a lot of worrying references to PPPs and similar. In terms of media, they commit that:

  • We will consider with urgency the recommendations that will be made by the recently established Forum on Broadcasting.
  • We will continue to support the development of Irish language broadcasting. In line with legislation which we have already enacted, we will establish TG4 as a separate statutory body.

And that’s it. It’s part of the culture section, which mentions the film industry and the music industry, and in passing increasing arts activity, but nothing about making the arts relevant to people’s lives, or facilitating people in getting involved (other than as professionals).
And before anyone starts coughing; no, I didn’t really expect anything like that, but the extent to which the entire programme is formulaic and bureaucratic, without any hint of vision or attempt at engagement is amazing, and worrying.
In an update to my last mail, the Labour Party candidates for the Seanad election have been announced. They include Derek McDowell (Industry and Commercial Panel), Michael McCarthy (Cork South West – Labour Panel), Kathleen O’Meara (Agricultural Panel) and Joanna Tuffy (Administrative Panel). We aren’t contesting the Cultural Panel, as the quota there is too high.
Only 5 of our TDs aren’t councillors, so our voting strength is something about 88 (might be less as we have had some defections, but then again some others may vote with our candidates). This means that Kathleen is fairly safe (quota over 80), and we should get a seat in Labour, also over 80.
Things are complicated here by Des Geraghty also running – he will pull votes from elsewhere, but could take votes from Michael. Des is also an official Labour candidate, though nominated by SIPTU rather than TDs. The complicated rules mean that at least 4 of the 11 seats in this panel need to go to those nominated by vocational bodies, and at least 4 to those nominated by TDs, so the effective quota will probably be lower in one of the sub-panels (and possibly higher in the other sub-panel).
The quota in Industry is over 96 by my reckoning, so Derek should get it on a later count, while Joanna will be an outside chance in the Admin panel (quota over 120).

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.