The Labour Party will not enter coalition with Fianna Fáil after the next general election, the leader of Fine Gael, Mr Enda Kenny, predicted yesterday when he called on voters to punish the Government in the local and European Parliament elections.
Launching Fine Gael's local election campaign in Cork, Mr Kenny was repeatedly questioned about the decision by the Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, to call on voters to cast their ballots "against the Government", rather than limiting their transfers to Fine Gael and Green Party candidates.
However, Mr Kenny insisted that Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party will move to create a formal alliance after the June elections so as to be ready to form the next government: "Pat Rabbitte has made it perfectly clear that he will have nothing to do with Fianna Fáil in government, and I believe him," he said.
Fine Gael is running 740 candidates including "bright, new people with proud, old values" in every ward and local authority area in the country. "This country needs a strong Fine Gael party. It needs a strong Fine Gael party to lead the next government," he said.
The next general election is three years away, he declared, "but the process of change starts much earlier".
"I am asking the electorate to make June 11th a citizens' referendum to begin that change. These elections are the first opportunity for the people to show it rejects a government that fails to keep its words, imposes taxes by stealth and creates no-go areas."
Expanding on Fine Gael's Ardfheis pledges to help first-time home buyers, Cork North Central TD, Mr Bernard Allen, said the proposal to pay all mortgage tax relief over the first seven years, rather than spreading it over the full life of the loan would not cost the Exchequer.
On a typical €225,000 mortgage, homebuyers would get an extra €119 per month in tax relief.
"The proposal does not favour those able to afford large mortgages as the existing caps on interest would be maintained," said Mr Allen, its environment spokesman.
Stamp duty on second-hand homes costing up to €400,000 would be abolished under its proposals, while larger numbers of such properties would be brought on to the market by encouraging older people to "trade down" to smaller properties, since they would be allowed to do so without stamp duty.
Under the proposals, a portion of the cost of each new house would be held in trust until builders finish off housing developments properly, while developers who failed to honour previous planning permissions would be barred from getting new ones.
Builders would be barred from demanding up to 90 per cent of a property's price in advance, while legislation would also be introduced to prevent "gazumping" where potential buyers are "left significantly out of pocket for legal fees and surveys" when they lose out at the last minute.
Local authority rezonings would be subject to final approval by a new review body headed by a High Court judge, he said. "This is not to take powers from local authorities. Currently, rezoning is a dirty word. Often councillors are reluctant to rezone because of the stigma that is there. This would support them."
Directly-elected mayors should be installed in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford, while a local "cabinet" would have executive responsibility, and senior local authority staff would be appointed by the full council and be answerable to the elected mayor.
Once the mayor is in place, the local cabinet would be selected from councillors from either one party, or from a coalition representing a majority on the council.
"With falling voter turnout and irrefutable evidence that people are becoming apathetic towards local politics, Fine Gael believes it is time to totally change the way local authorities do their work. At worst, local authorities are seen as bloated, inefficient and irrelevant to the lives of people."