The Government has deferred publication of its traditional annual progress report and is instead considering a more comprehensive pre-election account of its term in power.
The annual report of the Agreed Programme for Government was due to have been published in July. However, for the first time since 2002, the Government decided against publication and is now planning an "end-of-term" report closer to the election.
The delay will provide the Government with time to make progress on a number of unfulfilled key promises such as the creation of a Dublin transport authority and a metro link to Dublin airport by 2007.
No decision has been made on when the report will be published, but it is expected that Ministers will attempt to use it as a pre-election platform to publicise the promises it has met, especially in the taxation, economic and spending areas.
Last year, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen claimed that three-quarters of the 477 promises contained in the document had already been fulfilled.
The publication of the Government's annual report has previously been used by the Opposition to highlight policy U-turns or key commitments from the Government which have not been implemented. These have included the dropping of the 2007 deadline for the promise of 0.7 per cent of GNP for foreign aid and commitments to complete the national roads plan by 2006.
The annual progress report was first adopted by the Fianna Fáil/PD coalition in 1998 with its Action Programme for the Millennium.
The publication of the end-of-term report is expected to be one of a number of set-piece Government events organised with next year's election in mind. These include the Estimates in November, the Budget in December and the National Development Plan early next year.