Fine Gael is to hold selection conventions over the comings months as part of its strategy of preparing for the next general election. The party's front bench, at a meeting in Tullamore, Co Offaly, yesterday agreed that candidates would be selected in at least six constituencies before June.
These are Cork North West, Cork North Central, Donegal North East, Tipperary North, Dublin North Central and Dublin South Central.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said while he did not expect a general election this year, the party organisation, nationally and locally, was preparing for an election.
Mr Bruton and several of his frontbench colleagues fulfilled a series of engagements in counties Offaly, Roscommon and Westmeath before their first meeting of the new year.
As well as discussing electoral strategy, the front bench identified policy areas which Fine Gael will concentrate on over the forthcoming Dail term which begins next week. These include health, North-South co-operation and the economy.
Mr Bruton said the Government's performance in reducing borrowing and controlling inflation looked "particularly undistinguished" when compared with countries like Britain and Finland. The fiscal deficit was only middle ranking while the Republic's inflation rate was by far the worst in the euro zone.
He said these figures put the Government's economic performance into perspective.
On a new national partnership agreement, Mr Bruton said the current system of pay relativities within the public sector was "out of date". He said the Government had made "little visible progress towards a more modern and relevant system for pay determination and for rewarding success in the public services".
Mr Bruton also set a target of raising the State's per capita GNP to 110 per cent of the EU average by 2010. He said this was "an ambitious target" which would require a major investment in training and infrastructure.
Fine Gael has decided to devise a new measure of national wealth, to be used alongside the traditional GNP and GDP statistics.
This "quality of life" index would be broader than the traditional measurements. It would include a broad range of activities which improve and disimprove lifestyles, such as pollution levels and housing availability.
The party also criticised the Government over its handling of the health services. It said the failure to provide sufficient resources to the health system was "directly responsible for escalating hospital waiting lists, insufficient acute hospital beds, the existence of closed beds, wards and theatres and a crisis management ethos which permeates the system".
The Government has come under renewed attack for its handling of the asylum-seeker issue. This follows the resignation of the longest serving refugee appeals adjudicator, Mr Peter Finlay SC.
Labour's spokesman on justice, Mr Brendan Howlin TD, said the resignation was "the most damning evidence yet of the total shambles surrounding the Government's policy on asylum-seekers".
Fine Gael has called for a "complete review and overhaul" of asylum procedures, while the Irish Refugee Council reiterated its "serious reservations" about the interview practices of Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform officials.