Economy comes first and the finer detail can wait

AS Eamon Gilmore said, the Programme for Government agreed by the two parties is neither the Fine Gael manifesto in full nor the Labour manifesto.

It is a compromise, with each party getting some of what it wanted and having to give up the rest. In the absence of the electorate giving either party an overall majority to govern alone, that was always the way it was going to be.

But perhaps the key sentence in the programme is this: “The Government will get our economy moving, restore confidence, fix our banking system and support the protection and creation of jobs. The success of our economic plans will lay the foundation for the rest of our agenda for change.”