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Slowdown in the roads programme
The decision to freeze spending on transport infrastructure is one of the more questionable measures revealed by Mr McCreevy in the Estimates published this week. There is some merit to the Finance Minister's decision to ask Departments with high day-to-day spending requirements to live within their existing budget envelopes. Billions have been pumped into areas such as health over the past few years with little discernible improvement in services. p
Dangerous Flaws
Proposals for change, or reform, in any legislative area invariably give rise to opposing viewpoints. Elements of the new Arts Bill, now approaching committee stage in the Dáil, are clearly causing alarm among those who practise the arts but, as various contributions to a Dáil debate on the issues indicate, the concern is shared by some of our legislators. p
Opinion
River of shallow discontent has burst its banks
Righteous indignation and outrage: RIO. After the Estimates, there is more RIO washing around than there are floodwaters. Much of it is justified. It is righteous indignation, after all, which by definition must be outrage at some just cause, writes Breda O'Brien pLarger parties in opposition need common purpose
In the face of their electoral defeats six months ago, the two larger opposition parties have changed their leaders, and the Green Party has for the first time chosen a party leader, writes Garret FitzGerald. pFF backbenchers were all ready for the bad news
Two months ago, the Government was on the rack as a drip-feed of cutbacks and fee rises left Fianna Fáil backbenchers, in particular, uncomfortable and restless in the constituencies, write Mark Hennessy. p
An Irishman's Diary
I once heard the late, great actor and storyteller Eamonn Kelly describe the three most useless things in life. It is too early on a Saturday morning to mention two of them, which related to the religious life; but the third was those reviews in the magazine Stage, which invariably seemed to appeared after the play had closed, writes Dermot Bolger. p
