Parties need substance, not rhetoric

At last the silly season is over, and not before time, as the major political parties kick off the new political season with a series of parliamentary meetings throughout the country. Last year, these meetings, especially Fianna Fáil's in Inchydoney, set a new agenda as the parties tried to market an image that would gather fresh appeal for the electorate.

For Fianna Fáil, with Fr Seán Healy in attendance, it was a caring, socially aware and responsive image; Fine Gael raised the spectre of Rip-Off Ireland, a meaningless concept that has taken off in a big way with Eddie Hobbs's television show, while Labour got embroiled in a row over Michael D and the presidency which shoved to one side the more serious challenge to Fianna Fáil to put up a reality for their social awareness or shut up.

This year Fianna Fáil kick off the series on Monday and Tuesday in Cavan, with Fine Gael meeting in Portlaoise the following week, and Labour bringing up the tail in Clonmel the week after that. They are concentrating on quality of life issues, especially childcare and how to revive a spirit of community – a big issue for the new electorate in the commuter belt surrounding Dublin, where the next election will be won or lost. They will be particularly concerned to rubbish the Rip-Off slogan, raised initially by Fine Gael but given widespread coverage by Eddie Hobbs on his RTÉ show.

Unfortunately, it's no use pointing out that the market is deciding the prices we can afford to pay, and that we are being asked to pay them because we have the money to do so. For there are real problems in delivering the public services we need on time and on budget.

Fianna Fáil will have to come up with some solid arguments on that one if they are to convince the electorate.

On the other hand, so will the Fine Gael-led opposition. Enda Kenny, and his junior partner Pat Rabbitte, will need to do more than bemoan the rip-off that people perceive being practised on them. They will have to come up with solutions, with plans to remedy the problem. It won't be enough to claim that the Rainbow will be more efficient: there is no evidence at all to back up such a view.

The problem is that there are two ways of approaching the economy. In a full free-market approach, the market is left to decide, and if people are willing to pay the price then that is the price they will be charged. On the other hand, an interventionist approach controls prices, to some extent, by governmental order and takes action to confiscate exceptional profits through exceptional taxes.

In parallel to this, there are two ways of dealing with fiscal policy. Taxes can be spread as evenly as possible over the whole community, which means that they bear hardest on those with the lowest incomes, or they can be a mechanism to redistribute wealth by making the rich pay for the services enjoyed by the rest.

It is perfectly clear that, apart from a bit of special huffing and puffing from Labour, all three major parties support a free market with the most minimal of controls, and all three favour lowering taxes and equalising the burden.

The proof of this latter point is the issue of direct or indirect taxation. As Eddie Hobbs has pointed out, it is untrue that we are a low-tax economy. Our direct taxes are low, but we have a plethora of indirect taxes to make up the difference. As income tax came down we replaced it with higher VAT, bin charges, special fees and so on. Especially on food and clothing, on which lower income families spend a much higher proportion of their income, VAT cruelly fails to differentiate on ability to pay.

Yet only Sinn Féin and the Greens (in limited cases) argue for higher direct taxes on the most wealthy. The rest just want to tinker about on the edges of the system.

So Labour has rightly challenged Fianna Fáil to make a reality of its Damascene conversion to Fr Seán Healy's social conscience, but Fianna Fáil can equally challenge Labour to do the same. And if Fianna Fáil has a problem with social conscience when they remain in Government with the free market fanatics of the Progressive Democrats, so Labour must explain how they will square the circle as they prop up a Fine Gael administration.

Of course, the parliamentary programmes are for show, and we can expect much blood-curdling rhetoric, especially as all sides get stuck into Sinn Féin. But I suspect that the electorate want substance and won't be swayed by self-serving denunciations of political opponents.

Eoin Ó Murchú is the Eagraí Polaitíochta of RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta. He is writing here in a personal capacity