Policy vacuum leaves little for parties to fight over

THE Dáil finally returns from its six-week Christmas break today in the manner in which it left off — overwhelmed by the Mahon Tribunal and under-occupied with legislation.

The third confidence vote in five months will dominate the beginning of the brief 20-day Easter session, as Fine Gael tries to exploit what it perceives to be differing attitudes to the corruption probe from the three government parties.

As Chief Whip Tom Kitt published the legislative programme yesterday, Labour immediately branded it a “work of fiction” as nine of the 17 bills are leftovers from the list first announced in September.

With such a policy vacuum leaving little of substance for the Government and opposition to fight about, they will again slug it out over the Mahon probe.

The opposition has already used the confidence vote ploy to focus attention on what they call the unfitness for office of Bertie Ahern and Health Minister Mary Harney, but their attempt to tease out government tensions on Mahon may leave them looking too clever for their own good this time.

As trust in the Taoiseach’s Mahon evidence tumbles according to the latest opinion polls, FG hopes to divide the Greens and PDs from the stream of Fianna Fáil ministers whodenounced the probe following Mr Ahern’s uncomfortable two days of evidence in Dublin Castle just before Christmas.

However, with Green leader John Gormley leading the government’s response as his Environment Department has responsibility for the probe, the junior partner has more influence than usual over how the tricky situation is tackled.

With the music from Jaws building up in the background, another fin appearing in the shark-infested Dáil waters in the coming weeks will be the looming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

The Government must decide on a date for the ratification poll while hoping voters don’t use the situation to kick a Government already suffering classic mid-term blues.

Bills on the programme include one to set-up a new Dublin Transport Authority, first promised by Christmas 2006, reform student support and bring in new nursing home legislation.

Labour has expressed concern that a number of bills have simply fallen away from the schedule, such as the Employment Agency Regulation Bill, which was designed to help prevent the exploitation of foreign agency workers.

The upshot of the curious lack of legislative muscle flexing will be that Dublin Castle, rather than the Dáil, will again dominate this session of parliament when the Taoiseach returns to the Tribunal next month.