Government hypocrisy is transparent

Minister for the Environment Martin Cullen yesterday defended the imposition of local authority levies as something that has been in place since 1964.

"Any developer that is going to develop an area obviously has to pay for the facilities that the local authority is going to have to provide," he argued. But he emphasised that anyone who is buying a new house is not going to be faced with a bill from the local authority.

"This is to pay for the facilities to develop a site," Mr Cullen explained, "so we are levying this on the developers themselves, but what the problem was heretofore was that there is no transparency in this."

Of course, developers who are levied, inevitably pass on the costs to the house buyers. But Mr Cullen seemed to contradict himself.

"This applies to everybody," he said, "right across the system in providing the funding directly on the levies to the local authorities.

"This has nothing to do specifically with just householders. It's providing all the facilities right across a whole range of communities."

He insists that this is all being done in the name of transparency. It is another stealth tax being increased, only this time it is supposedly being done in the name of openness. The minister's arguments were contradictory. It is a further example of this government's crass hypocrisy and the quality of its weak leadership, which becomes more transparent daily.

The Minister for Finance had no difficulty in exceeding the cap in grant aid for the Punchestown agricultural centre in his own constituency. Having contributed almost 15 million towards constructing the centre, the taxpayer is now being asked to pay for the rental of those facilities for the next year's EU summit.

There seems to be no limit to the brazen arrogance of various government ministers, who have been feathering their own political nests by behaving with blatant favouritism towards their own constituencies.

Defence Minister Michael Smith has already engaged in such favouritism by moving the Civil Defence headquarters to Roscrea.

Now he is turning the concept of collective cabinet responsibility upside down by expressing his opposition to the downgrading of Nenagh Hospital, as recommended in the Hanly Report, which the Government has formally decided to implement.

The Taoiseach defended Mr Smith's actions on the grounds that nobody should be expected to agree with every single line in any report. Members of the Cabinet are entitled to express their views within the Government, but that is not the same thing as disagreeing publicly with government policy. Under the concept of collective cabinet responsibility, there is no room for solo runs by individual ministers.

Even though the Minister for Defence told RTÉ of his determination to resist the proposed downgrading of Nenagh Hospital, the Taoiseach told the Dáil yesterday that "Minister Smith totally, totally accepts the Hanly Report."

That's not only an insult to the Dáil it's an insult to the Irish people.