With terms used such as 'grossly polluted' and news that Laois is the only county with a playground for one in every thousand children, Hilary Curley finds Ireland's first performance table for local government grim reading
Labour-Fianna Fáil government next
On Monday 25 July, the Government claimed that three quarters of its commitments had been met or were about to be met. This contrasts starkly with a recent analysis by Village, which shows that 25 of the key election promises on health, housing, crime and infrastructure will not be met before the next election. Political commentators (see next page) predict that Bertie Ahern will probably be the next Taoiseach, despite these broken promises. Here is a small sample of key broken promises.
'I am in a constituency of stars, yet no one outside Tallaght really knows who I am." Charlie O'Connor, backbench Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin South West, enjoys his anonymity.
Depending on your political persuasion, Karl Rove is either a clever, bare-knuckles brawler who has mastered the arena of American politics, or a dirty dealing smear-meister who's plumbed new depths in negative politics. Either way, revelations that Rove was the White House source who "outed" CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003 in order to punish her husband have put George W Bush's closest advisor in the hottest water of his political career.
'Women could be more politically aggressive than they had been been" and they "had been let down the most by other women" according to one member of the Irish Governments delegation in New York on 13 July. The Irish political system was one of the most difficult in Europe for women to enter into because of the party structure and voting system, according to Frank Fahey, Minister with responsibility for equality. He acknowledged the constitution was male-orientated saying it had been written in the early 1930s and needed to be changed.
It is ludicrous for Government ministers, with supposed responsibility for departments of State, to be paid €200,000 on the basis that chief executives of comparable institutions are paid similarly. There is no comparability.
Leinster House has gone quackers and it has nothing to do with the 12-week summer break the Government has imposed on the house or Michael McDowell's penchant for chewing gum in the Dáil.
The capitulation of Michael McDowell on an inquiry into the death of Brian Rossiter is abject. His claim that he knew nothing about the case until recently, extraordinary. His caution about the nature of the inquiry, worrying.
TDs' TRAVEL: As the Dáil term comes to a close, figures released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal who has been travelling where in the line of duty this year and how much it has cost. Colin Murphy and David Long report