Vote-buying – Poll ploys smack of arrogance
This time the finger is pointing directly at Environment Minister Martin Cullen, who has liberally paved the roads of his Waterford constituency with taxpayers’ money.
Far outstripping the level of investment in roads approved by his department for other counties, Mr Cullen has presided over a scenario in which his home patch has benefited to the tune of an astonishing five-fold increase in Department of Environment roads funding in recent years.
By any assessment, the increase is far ahead of anywhere else in Ireland, a point underscored in the party’s campaign manifesto aimed at Waterford voters. The document was produced by Fianna Fáil director of elections, who happens to be Mr Cullen.
According to Fianna Fáil’s own calculations, Waterford City Council’s local roads allocation of €10.6 million this year is a 556% increase upon 1999.
By way of contrast, Fianna Fáil’s election documentation shows Galway City Council’s allocation has dropped by 27% to just over €1.8 million within the same period.
As Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen is directly responsible for carving up the roads funding budget for the past two years and as Fianna Fáil director of elections his imprimatur is on all election material produced by the party.
The minister’s explanation, that Waterford’s figures were boosted by a one-off project involving a ring road at the city, does not excuse the naked political thrust of election material which is obviously designed for blatantly electoral purposes.
Measured in the context of the 260% rise in grant levels for South Dublin, the busiest road network in the country, the 556% increase for Waterford raises the spectre of a city getting the royal treatment from a home-base minister.
It follows last month’s revelation that the then Justice Minister John O’Donoghue used his ministerial discretion to ensure Killorglin Rowing Club, in the heart of his South Kerry constituency, received a €300,000 grant in breach of department guidelines.
Getting two bites of the cherry, Fianna Fáil last week reaped the fruit of the controversial grant when Mr O’Donoghue, now responsible for sport and tourism, opened the €690,000 boathouse, a curtain-raiser for tomorrow’s local elections. Drawn from National Lottery funds, the money was approved a month before the 2002 general election.
In another revealing insight into the mindset of the country’s biggest and by far most successful political party, it transpires that Fianna Fáil’s head office had given all FF party candidates figures of what decentralisation is worth to their area.
Giving the lie to the doctrine that decentralisation was aimed at radically overhauling the public service, it has now emerged that the Fianna Fáil machine is working flat-out to get the message across to voters that the party’s decentralisation plan will mean €220 million a year for the regions.
The abuse of the diplomatic bag to harness ex-pat votes was another example of Fianna Fáil’s propensity to bend the rules.
In power for 18 of the past 20 years, its tendency to put a political spin on public decisions, or use the system for cynical electoral purposes, smacks of a party grown arrogant and impervious to criticism, no matter how warranted.
