Read My Lips: Fintan O'Tooledraws attention to some recent glaring examples of political double-standards and hypocrisy on the campaign trail.
'We believe", proclaims the Fianna Fáil manifesto, "that balanced regional development is essential. Fianna Fáil introduced Ireland's first National Spatial Strategy to support social and economic development throughout the country . . . Over the next five years, investment in the regions under the National Development Plan 2007- 2013 will be focused in accordance with the priorities of the National Spatial Strategy. We will ensure that the nine regional gateways develop a critical mass of population to offer a real alternative to growth in the Dublin region."
There are, in reality, two obvious problems with these fine sentiments.
The first is that the outgoing Government essentially ignored the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) in its own most direct policy for regional growth - the decentralisation of 10,000 civil and public servants.
In December 2003, the author of that plan, the then Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, told that Dáil: "Some 2,650 of the approximately 9,000 jobs in respect of which decisions have already been made are moving to gateways and hubs identified in the National Spatial Strategy."
Or to put it another way, well over two-thirds of the decentralised jobs were to go to towns that were not supposed to be centres for large-scale development under the NSS.
The other problem is that with the Government itself ignoring the NSS, it has been a clear failure. Addressing the Irish Planning Institute's recent annual conference in Kilkenny, IPI president Henk van der Kamp said growth since 2002 in many counties with towns designated as gateways under the NSS was actually well below the national average, while it was well above the average in some counties without gateways.
Only four of the 10 counties with gateway growth centres - Galway, Louth, Offaly and Westmeath - had recorded above-average population growth, while 12 counties without gateways had thrived. This, he pointed out, was due to the continued sprawl of Dublin and the low levels of growth in cities generally (with the exception of Galway): "Only a minuscule 4 per cent of the population growth between 2002 and 2006 took place in our five main cities combined."
At the same time, the population of rural areas grew at a faster rate between 2002 and 2006 than in the period from 1996 to 2002, mainly due to the spread of one-off houses in the countryside.
The Labour Party manifesto is commendably strong on the need to make the government more accountable to the Dáil. It makes a number of promises, including a 50 per cent increase in Dáil sitting days.
Explaining the need for these changes, party leader Pat Rabbitte cited the way in which the current Taoiseach has been less than enthusiastic about appearing in the chamber to answer questions. Bertie Ahern, Pat Rabbitte complained, "only comes into the Dáil when he can't avoid it".
What the Labour leader seems to have forgotten is that it was his own party that facilitated the Taoiseach's more frequent absence.
After the last election, with the arrival of more TDs from Sinn Féin and the Greens and a large tranche of Independents, Labour found itself faced with a likely loss of Dáil speaking privileges.
Sinn Féin, the Greens, the Socialist Party and the Independents formed a technical group to give its members rights in the allocation of Dáil time and the questioning of ministers and the Taoiseach. The group had one TD more than Labour, making Labour, for these purposes, the fourth- rather than the third-largest party in the Dáil.
To avoid this unpleasant situation, Labour did what an editorial in this paper described as a "shoddy backstairs deal" with Fianna Fáil. The two parties agreed to change the Dáil's standing orders in such a way as to ensure that Labour retained its place in the pecking order.
The payback for this was that Labour agreed that, instead of having to answer questions in the Dáil on three days a week, the Taoiseach would get a day off.
Instead of being stuck with the tedious task of giving mystifying answers to the questions of elected representatives, Bertie Ahern would have every Thursday to get on with the more important national business of opening pubs and shaking hands with the entire population.
If it's true that Bertie Ahern "comes into the Dáil only when he can't avoid it", it was Labour that helped reduce his unavoidable commitments to accountability to the bare minimum.
Sinn Féin has declared health to be "the number one issue in this general election", and has highlighted in particular the threat to downgrade facilities at hospitals in the border region.
"Sinn Féin," the party's Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, told a press conference, "affirms our party's full commitment to the future of all five local hospitals across the region - Cavan General Hospital, Monaghan General Hospital, the Louth County Hospital at Dundalk, Our Lady's Hospital, Navan and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda."
The party's Healthcare as a Right policy document commits itself to "halting the over-centralisation of hospital facilities and reversal of cutbacks in services at local hospitals."
Oddly enough, when Sinn Féin held the health portfolio in the first executive established under the Belfast Agreement, the issue that gave it most trouble was the downgrading of local hospitals in the border region.
The party's health minister Bairbre de Brún commissioned the Hayes report, whose main proposals include centralising acute services into nine main hospitals, while downgrading seven of Northern Ireland's remaining smaller hospitals by stripping them of A&E and maternity services - exactly what has been proposed south of the border.
Sinn Féin Assembly members Sue Ramsey and John Kelly gave the report a "guarded welcome" and praised its "radical and comprehensive" proposals.
Of course, partition has its uses and Sinn Féin would be the last party to imply that what happens North of the border has any relevance to the South.