One more candidate gives her views

I sent a reminder e-mail to the candidates in Limerick City yesterday - all those except Matt Larkin, Conor O'Donoghue and Denis Riordan, because I didn't have e-mail addresses for them, although I did text Conor in fairness. This was to follow on from the questions I had posed to all the Limerick City General Election candidates at the beginning of the months - you can see those responses here and here.

Jan O'Sullivan got back to me, here's what she said:

Dear James, thanks for your email. I have answered your queries as
follows:

1. As Labour Party Health spokesperson I published a very detailed
reform proposal which would completely transform the Health Services to a
one tier system which will include primary care free at the point of
delivery as well as the complete transformation of the HSE. This is
available on the Labour Party website at www.labour.ie

2. Yes I would put a cap on the cost of Ministerial cars and also reduce
the number of them greatly.

3. The IMF/EU bailout was not a good deal. It must be renegotiated
including the rate which has been charged and also the need to bear the
burden with bond holders.

4. I am not planning to travel abroad on St Patrick's Day.

5. The Labour Party is proposing much shorter holidays for the Dail.

6. I think Politicians pay should be set by an independent body which
does not have any representation of politicians on it. I believe our pay
should be reduced, particularly the pay of Ministers and the Taoiseach.

7. The Labour Party has proposed a higher rate of tax for anyone earning
one hundred thousand euro or more. We also believe that there should not
be very high salaries for people in the public service and that we need to
have a more equal society. We intend to protect the incomes of people on
lower levels of income and on Social Welfare. The Labour Party has a
number of initiatives on job creation including a five hundred million euro
jobs fund, PRSI holidays for people who take people from the live register,
thirty thousand graduates/apprentices places, proposals to develop
Ireland's strengths, including the food industry and information
technology. As well as clean energy and tourism. If we can become a world
leader in some of these areas we can create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

8. The Labour Party proposes a very small team of people to advise the
Taoiseach and Cabinet and it will be focused on policy rather than media.

9. The Labour Party is the only party to vote against the bailout of the
banks.

10. I do not believe that T.D.'s should get pensions until they are 65,
that includes Ministers.

With best wishes,

Jan O'Sullivan T.D.

So that ends that then. Don't think I'll have time to post up any more responses tomorrow. At least I have six out of ten responses, representing five of the main parties - one response each from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael (albeit a very short one), Sinn Féin, The Green Party and Sinn Féin, with two from Labour. Unfortunately I didn't get a detailed response from Fine Gael, the party most likely to be in Government, so it'll be very hard to call them to task if they end up not pracising what they preached.

Three more Limerick City election candidates get their answers in

One week on from when I first posed the questions, I got three more replies into my inbox in the last 24 hours, this time from the Greens' Sheila Cahill, Sinn Féin's Maurice Quinlivan and Fianna Fáil's Willie O'Dea. It turns out they're all running in the Limerick City, and not the Limerick East, constituency. Credit's due to Sheila Cahill, the Green Party's candidate, who clarified that one for me. In fairness to her, she was also very quick off the mark with her response: I only learned of her candidature on Saturday, she sent the following back to me by Sunday night:

Hi James,

Thanks for your email and your questions. I hope that I give clear answers to your questions -- however if anything isn't clear please feel free to get in touch. I'm delighted that you plan on publishing all responses online -- transparency is the only way we can get clean politics in this country. I'm trying to set an example by for example posting all my election expenses online.

Last Monday night I sent the below e-mail to all the candidates that I knew were running in the Limerick East/City constituency (what's it called these days?)

The name of the new constituency is Limerick City -- I don't blame you for being confused though!

What reforms have you planned for the HSE? Any hope of making the health service more efficient?

Our health system must be based around universal access to primary health care delivered in the community. My mother had to go to A&E last year, and she had to wait on a trolley for three days before being transferred to a ward. Yet many people present themselves to A&E because they have no alternative. Effective primary care services, delivered locally in a cost-effective manner, could save the HSE millions of euro and provide a much better experience for patients. We should be augmenting our local services with assistance such as anNHS Direct equivalent for people who want health advice but can't afford a GP visit. There would of course be challenges to such an approach, particularly when asking staff to deliver services in a different manner. But without a shift in focus from the provider to the patient, we will never achieve a health system that works.

Would you put a cap on the cost of ministerial cars to vehicles that are a little less ostentatious and better value for money, e.g. a ford fiesta?

I am proud that the two Green Party ministers in the last government chose a Toyota Prius for their ministerial car over the more standard Mercedes S-Class. I think a pooling system for ministers cars could save money, and more importantly give a message that we're all in this together. I would love to see all ministerial cars replaced with fuel-efficient models which reflect the new austerity in this country.

Was the IMF / EU bailout a good deal in your opinion and if not can you renegotiate if elected?

We can't unilaterally renegotiate the IMF/EU bailout. Any candidate who tells you otherwise is completely unrealistic or lying. Having said that, the current interest rate is punitive and I think through diplomacy we can encourage our European neighbours to reconsider the interest rate, especially the service charge.

Are you travelling abroad on St. Patrick’s Day at my expense and what do you hope to achieve by it?

Limerick is the best place to spend St. Patrick's Day, without a doubt! If I was travelling for the day it would only be to encourage investment and jobs in Ireland. And, if elected, I would publish all expenditure on such trips on my website, so the public could decide whether any trip was value for money.

Why does the Dail get such long holidays and is it fair on the rest of us?

Much of the work of government gets done outside Dáil sessions. This is a sad reflection on the purpose of our national parliament, where point-scoring and local queries dominate and policy barely gets a look-in. A working Dáil requires two commitments, one from politicians to accept that they cannot continue to take ridiculously long holidays, and the second from voters who need to accept that we elect TDs to focus on national issues.

How much do you think politicians should be paid?

€50-60,000 sounds about right to me.

Why are certain public servants and members of semi-state bodies paid so much money?

I think it's reflective of a culture where we don't seek value for money in our public service. This especially relates to our semi-states: if the Minister is the only shareholder then s/he should be able to demand that we're getting value for money.

What real and tangible initiatives does your party have for creating jobs?

Through initiatives such as the Warmer Homes Scheme, over 16,000 jobs have been created by the Eamon Ryan's department alone in government. There's an awful lot more we can do. More details here.

Will you do anything about reducing the excessive number of costly media advisors to the Taoiseach and cabinet?

I think it's reasonable for a Minister to have one or two staff that s/he has power of appointment over. Anything more than that is excessive.

Would you reverse any decisions made in propping up the banks with taxpayer’s money?

That's a difficult question, and it's difficult to give a concise answer. Unfortunately the mistakes made in banking policy were in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when it was obvious that the property market was spiralling out of control but no-one would listen to the voices, including the Green Party's, who tried to say stop. Now we have to sort out the mess, and there are no easy answers. It hasn't helped of course that many banks were less than honest about the scale of their losses.

Given that each ministerial pension costs so much to fund, what is the average fully laden cost to us for each TD? How many do we really need?

I don't have the exact figures to hand, but obviously we need to reform Ministerial pensions. I think it's sensible that no pensions should be paid until someone reaches 65, and that the payment is proportionate to how long someone has served in the job. On the number of TDs, I agree with John Gormley's proposal that there should be 120 TDs, half elected from single-seat constituencies and half elected from a national list.


I hope that answers some of your questions. I'd be interested in what you think -- do drop me an email if you have views yourself on these issues.

Best wishes,

Sheila.

Next up was Sinn Féin's Maurice Quinlivan, who has arguably sent the most comprehensive reply so far:

Dear James,

Please find below answers to questions posed by yourself.

What reforms have you planned for the HSE? Any hope of making the health service more efficient?

Sinn Féin is committed to a new universal public health system that provides care to all free at the point of delivery, on the basis of need alone, and funded from general fair and progressive taxation.

We will make the health service more efficient in a number of ways, all of which are detailed in our manifesto. I’ll mention just a couple for now:

1) Fewer bureaucrats, more frontline health workers. Carry out a review of managerial and administrative posts within the health service and the Department of Health, with a view towards eliminating those positions that are surplus to requirement

and using the money saved to hire more frontline health professionals.

2) An end to public subsidies for private healthcare.

3) Immediately end tax breaks for private hospitals and the land gift scheme

4) Abolish the National Treatment Purchase Fund and return its funding to the public health system

5) End private hospital co-location scheme.

Potential to save €100million

6) Apply charges based on the full economic cost to all use of all beds in public and voluntary hospitals in the State for the purposes of private medical practice.

Saves €305million.

7) Reduce the cost of medicines in our health system, establishing a state

company for the wholesale distribution of drugs, using lower-cost generic drugs, and tackling over-prescription and wastage. Saves €200million (figure provided by the Department of Health in2009).

Would you put a cap on the cost of ministerial cars to vehicles that are a little less ostentatious and better value for money, e.g. a ford fiesta?

Yes I would, I would advocate moving to a carpool system similar to that operated in Britain whereby ministers access a car only as they it for ministerial business. Cars should be small and environmentally friendly

Was the IMF / EU bailout a good deal in your opinion and if not can you renegotiate if elected?

No it was a disastrous deal that condemns a whole generation to mass unemployment and emigration in order to bail out European Banks that lent money recklessly to Irish Banks.

Yes we can renegotiate it-by insisting on separating bank debt from sovereign debt as advocated by Pierce Doherty and David McWilliams. Actually we can’t afford not to renegotiate it.

Are you travelling abroad on St. Patrick’s Day at my expense and what do you hope to achieve by it?

No, I’ll be staying in Limerick and look forward to seeing the parade on O’Connell Street.. As you mention the issue of expenses I would like to point out that my expenses as a Councillor were the lowest on Limerick City Council-this is because I don’t do junkets.

Why does the Dail get such long holidays and is it fair on the rest of us?

The Dail gets such long holidays because it has been run by a thoroughly corrupt and inept elite who have become entirely detached from how people in the real world live. No of course it’s not fair, it’s a disgrace.

How much do you think politicians should be paid?

I think they should be paid the average industrial wage, which incidentally is what I will take as my salary should I be elected

Why are certain public servants and members of semi-state bodies paid so much money?

Because they’re great. Only joking, Because they have worked hand in glove with the political elite that have done so much damage to this country, and have been awarded handsomely over the so called Celtic Tiger years. Sinn Fein policy is that no public servant should be paid more than 100K a year.

What real and tangible initiatives does your party have for creating jobs?

We propose the following tangible initiatives:

1)A labour-intensive essential infrastructure programme as part of a €7billion job stimulus programme. The focus of this programme would be to build hospitals,

schools, water infrastructure, public transport networks and to roll out broadband State-wide.

2) Establish within the stimulus programme a €600million Jobs Retention Fund.

This fund would subsidise workers in struggling Small and Medium Enterprises

(SMEs) with the potential to save 96,000 jobs, akin to the successful model used in

Germany.

3) Create employment through the construction and delivery of childcare services. There is a significant deficit which, if unaddressed, will be an impediment to economic recovery.

4) A new generation of co-operatives. Provide start-up funding and other

support for co-operatives as a viable choice for start-up businesses and

the conversion to co-operatives as an alternative to closure for struggling

businesses.

5) Jobs created for the under-25s. A Youth Jobs Fund to create 20,000 new jobs

and an individual plan for the long-term prospects of every person under 25 who

is on the Live Register.

6) Boost employment in the tourism sector by developing tourist attractions,

including cultural tourism attractions, amenities for those interested in adventure sport and attractions for children and young people. Implement steps to make Ireland the top destination for those who want a clean, green tourist

destination in Europe. Target emerging and different/niche markets.

7) Grow the agri-food sector by implementing the proposals in the report produced by Sinn Féin TD Arthur Morgan for the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment. These proposals include funding and support central production hubs for SMEs involved in the agri-food sector.

8) Employ apprentices on public projects. Make the employment of a set amount of

apprentices a condition on which public contracts are awarded to contractors building public infrastructure to help address the crisis in non-completed

apprenticeships due to the construction sector collapse.

j) Create a new generation of entrepreneurs. Do this by changing the

PRSI system to create a safety net for those who attempt to establish their

own business, launching a National Entrepreneurship Programme with

incubation centres on the country and doubling the target for supporting

High Potential Start-Ups (HPSUs) from 200 to 400 per year.

Will you do anything about reducing the excessive number of costly media advisors to the Taoiseach and cabinet?

I wouldn’t use media advisors, I don’t believe any politician is justified in engaging in spin

Would you reverse any decisions made in propping up the banks with taxpayer’s money?

Yes Sinn Fein is very specific in this regard. We would remove the blanket guarantee to bank bondholders, immediately close down Anglo-Irish Bank, and merge Bank of Ireland and AIB.

Given that each ministerial pension costs so much to fund, what is the average fully laden cost to us for each TD? How many do we really need?

Ministerial pensions are a disgrace and should not be tolerated-I would support the idea of ceiling on pension payments for all T.D.’s.

I would retain the current number of T.D.’s at least until such time as a proper system of accountable local government is established. People should have full access to their local politicians- but I would insist that they get paid an awful lot less money and also drastically cut expenses.

With regards,

Cllr. Maurice Quinlivan

Limerick City Council

087- 825 8125

find me on:

Twitter and Facebook.

And finally, another comprehensive one, this time from Willie O'Dea TD, Fianna Fáil, which arrived via his personal secretary Yvonne McMahon this evening:Dear James queries please find below responses.

Dear James

Further to your recent queries please find below responses.

What reforms have you planned for the HSE? Any hope of making the health service more efficient?

We recently introduced a scheme to reduce the numbers working in administration in the HSE – that will produce help reduce costs and target more resources at frontline staff. In my personal view one of the main difficulties with the HSE is that it does not seem to put the care and comfort of the patient to the fore of everything it does. There are very many good and hard working people in the HSE at all levels, but poor management and out of date work practises across the service are hampering progress.

Would you put a cap on the cost of ministerial cars to vehicles that are a little less ostentatious and better value for money, e.g. a ford fiesta?

I personally would have no problem with restricting car size or type and with having car pooling arrangements. As you may know I often did not use the ministerial car by choice when on Ministerial business or when I was working in Limerick, so there were many times when the car was available and could have been used by others.

Was the IMF / EU bailout a good deal in your opinion and if not can you renegotiate if elected?

I have written about this matter in the Sunday Independent a few times in recent weeks. The first point is the bailout here was really about the EU defending the Euro and their belief that it was cheaper to defend it on Irish soil rather than Spanish or Italian soil. The interest rates we would have to pay on the open market are still above those being charged by the EU. But there is no doubt that the EU interest rates could be lowered and should be lowered.

Brian Lenihan has successfully worked to have the issue of a reduction in the interest rate placed on the agenda and progress is being made. Governments from the 17 euro area and the 27 EU member states are expected to agree a comprehensive package of reforms to the rescue funds by end-March.

Why does the Dail get such long holidays and is it fair on the rest of the country?

There is a difference between Dáil holiday’s and a TD’s holidays. The Dail does not usually sit in August & September – though the Dail committees do sit in September. The Same applies in January.

I cannot speak for other TD’s but I do not take long holidays. I have clinics for about 48 weeks out of 52 weeks. I am at my office in Limerick or out and about attending meetings when I am not in Dublin.

While I have no objection to the Dáil sitting for longer, the reality is that spending more time in Dublin attending the Dáil will reduce the amount of time I have to make contact with the people on the ground and hear their views, give advice and perhaps assistance. I do not see how this benefits the democratic process.

How much do you think politicians should be paid?

A couple of years ago it was generally agreed that TD’s should no longer have the right to decide their own pay. I agreed with that decision. It was agreed then that a TD’s pay should be pegged to a civil service grade – Principal Officer. I think that is about right.

As part of the austerity measures pay for politicians has dropped since 2008 – as it has for people generally. Minister’s pay came down by just 20% and TD’s pay by about 10%, plus the pension levy was applied to us all. The expenses system was tightened up considerably and costs reduced. Brian Lenihan also made major changes to the pension arrangements. One important change means that from this election onwards, sitting TDs will not be able to claim ministerial pensions while they are still TDs. Only those who have retired from politics will be able to claim pensions.

Why are certain public servants and members of semi-state bodies paid so much money?

The argument for paying certain people so much has been that they could get more in the private sector and that it was necessary to pay more to keep the best people.

It is only three or four years since the president of the Hospital Consultants association called a consultants salary of over €230,000 for just 31 hours work in a public hospital “mickey mouse” money.

While there was pressure getting good people in the public sector during the boom years, it is not so true now. Now the public service with its security of employment and good pension provisions is as attractive, if not more attractive than some areas of the private sector,

What real and tangible initiatives does your party have for creating jobs?

Our Jobs Programmes identifies specific areas of economic activity that will provide growth and employment, it is ambitious and costed. We set our how each enterprise agency will deliver new jobs and the sectors these jobs will be delivered in. These amount to the direct support for the creation of 150,000 new jobs.

Our commitments include Metro North, and a new national retrofit program which, together with tax credits for energy efficiency upgrades, will create 10,000 new jobs and we have ambitious plans to support Arts and Culture, the Green Economy, including the establishment of a Green IFSC, and developing the Digital Economy.

Our Plan outlines in detail how we will reduce the cost of doing business and offer new support to small and medium size enterprises, which support 700,000 Irish jobs. It also spells out how we will aid the services sector, which already accounts for 107,000 jobs in agency assisted companies. It details new strategies to create new jobs in the agri-food sector; outlines specific actions to assist the tourism industry. Our Plan aims to increase the number of overseas visitors to 8 million by 2015.

Foreign direct investment supports a quarter of a million jobs in this country, and we intend to resolutely defend this cornerstone of our economic strategy.

We have real world advantages, such as -

· the fact that we have the youngest population in Europe;

· the highest proportion of graduates amongst the under 34 in the EU;

· clusters of leading multinationals already here; and,

· the fact that US companies invest more in Ireland than they invest in Russia, China and Brazil combined -

Will you do anything about reducing the excessive number of costly media advisors to the Taoiseach and cabinet?

There is a lot of talk about media and political advisers, but most of the advisers are full time civil servants who are just assigned to the Taoiseach’s office. Moving them back to their own original section would not reduce costs and would only mean additional work on those in the Taoiseach’s office. I think it is important that any Minister has access to good independent advice – as well as to the civil service, so I would not be in favour of scrapping the advisers system entirely. Each Minister is allowed to appoint two advisers, usually one of these deals with the media. Though we are a small country we have a huge media, particularly political journalists, and dealing with their queries, requests and questions can take up far too much of the advisers time. If we are to cut the number of advisers then journalists will have to accept waiting longer for replies to their questions.

While I was a Minister staff numbers in the Taoiseach and Minister’s Officers were reduced by over 10%. Advisers pay was reduced twice – by about 15% in total.

Would you reverse any decisions made in propping up the banks with taxpayers' money?

The alternative to what we did was to have the entire Irish banking system collapse. It would have collapsed Irish business and brought the entire country to a standstill. What we did was not nice – but the alternative was so much worse. Though it might seem like a technical point, we are not actually propping up the banks with the taxpayers cash, we are borrowing money from the European Central bank to prop up the banks and using the banks assets in exchange.

There is a cost to the taxpayer as borrowing all this money for the banks has made it more expensive to borrow money to run the state. We established NAMA to help us recover that money over the decade ahead, but it is costing us now.

We now know the extent of the incorrect and frankly misleading information given to the Government and to the markets by the Banks. They only revealed the truly disastrous state of their finances when they had absolutely no alternative. Their delaying and misleading tactics cost us money and massive loss of credibility. I wish we could have established NAMA sooner so the states experts could have gotten into the banks sooner and given us the true picture.

Given that each ministerial pension costs so much to fund, what is the average fully laden cost to us for each TD? How many do we really need?

Not every TD becomes a Minister, far from it, so the costs of a Minister and a TD are very different. A TD is paid on the principal officer scale – approx €93k. The expenses and allowances system was tightened up considerably and costs reduced.

Brian Lenihan also made major changes to the pension arrangements. One important change means, from this election onwards, that sitting TDs will not be able to claim ministerial pensions while they are still TDs. Only those who have retired from politics will be able to claim pensions.

The number of TDs is based on the provision in the constitution Article 16.2 that allows 1 TD per 20,000 – 30,000 people. As the population has increased so has the number of TDs. The population according to the 2006 Census (there will be another Census this April) is just over 4.24million. This leaves an average of 1 TD per 25,500 people based on the 2006 figure, the population has been increasing so it is likely that the average today is slightly higher. This does allow scope for reducing the number of TDs… but then the problem is which regions and areas lose TDs. Mathematically it should be those where the population has increased least, but this would likely give less representation and a weaker voice to rural areas suffering most from emigration – either to Dublin or abroad.

I hope that this addresses your questions James but if you have anything further please do not hesitate to contact me.

Regards

Willie O'Dea T.D.

--
Sent by: Yvonne MacMahon
Personal Secretary to Willie O'Dea, T.D.

So there you have it. Three hefty replies, each offering differing and interesting policy suggestions. I don't read too much into the time taken responding to the e-mail - the Election is a busy time so perhaps the pragmatist in the politicians is wondering why should they spend so much time and effort into answering just one voter's questions. Also, I think the power of social media and the Internet on shaping elections has been somewhat overestimated since the 2008 US Election - Stephen O'Shea, an Independent candidate in Dundrum in the 2009 Local Election had some interesting views on this topic in the wake of his campaign: Is there anyone listening to the virtual politician? Well I suppose his blog post was published before Simon Coveney mused about Brian Cowen's congestion problems or Dan Boyle's saying one thing to Fianna Fáil and tweeting another.

Anyway, I sent the original e-mail for a number of reasons: I'm a genuine swing voter this time round; I'm not home til quite late each evening so chances are I'd miss the politicians and their attendant supporters in person on the doorstep and finally because a list of direct questions are harder to fob off in print than they are in the spoken word. I've found their responses quite interesting and informative and I hope you do too.

I will of course publish any further replies I get from the other candidates.

It's time for some campaigning! (Some) Limerick East Candidates Answer Some Questions

Over at Newstalk, Tom Dunne has put together a list of questions to ask any politicians that come canvassing to your door. Quite good ones too, ranging from such topics as the merits of Ford Fiestas versus Ministerial Mercs, Ireland's morbidly obese public sector cats, to the good old HSE. While I too, over the last couple of years, have thought of a fair few questions and or rants to put to our elected members and those seeking office, owing to sheer forgetfulness and not carrying a pen and paper with me everywhere I go, don't have said questions and rants to hand. So instead, I took the easy way out, and last night re-directed Tom Dunne's questions to all the declared candidates running in the Limerick East electoral area.

For the purposes of this exercise I only asked the first eleven questions, which I e-mailed last night. I'm going to publish their replies here, as they come in.

First off the mark was Cllr Joe Leddin, Labour , here was his reply:

James,

Labour will shortly launch our universal health insurance plan which will be centered around the medical needs of a patient and not their ability to pay,

Labour has launched a policy reform document outlining 140 proposed changes on how Government does its business

Labour will launch our economic plan including €500 m jobs fund on thursdat next, we opposed the ban bailout and were the only party to vote against same

Limerick has reduced from 5 to 4 seats so if other 5/4 seat constituencies were also reduced then we would reduce the dail by between 30/40 T.D.'s, i will be attending the St Patricks day parade in Limerick

Our website is updating policy documents on a daily basis if you require additional information

regards

So a fairly comprehensive reply then, not sure if all eleven questions were addressed in their entirety though.

Next up came Michael Noonan TD, who took a brief is best approach:

Dear James,

Thank you very much for your E Mail which I have forwarded to our policy
unit for direct answer.

Yours sincerely,
MICHAEL NOONAN, T.D.

So make what you like of the responses. Decide for yourself is a rushed together personal response better than a neat and short reply passing the buck onto an advisor. Perhaps a handwritten letter would have been better, but then time is ticking down to February 25th. I'll be posting any other responses I get here.