In January the Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte launched the first of his "five commitments for change" by promising to provide one year's free pre-school education to all children, writes Noel Whelan.
It was an interesting proposal. Rabbitte promised implementation within five years, saying it would cost €180 million but, apart from that, the details of the proposal were sketchy. The following weekend I observed in this column how all the questions put to Rabbitte that week had focused on scenarios for post-election government formation rather than the detail of his pre-school promise. I suggested 10 questions which could usefully have been asked about the latter.
A few days later this paper published a short letter from the Labour Party's spokesperson on childcare, Senator Kathleen O'Meara, responding to my column. She assured readers that the commitment had been "fully costed" and that the party had "a detailed plan for its implementation".
She did not provide those details or address any of my questions. Instead she wondered why I had not bothered to phone the party and ask them the questions before I raised them in the column. Reminding readers that I had formerly been a Fianna Fáil candidate, she wondered whether I had access to a telephone as there couldn't have been any other reason for my not asking them the questions first.
I have no difficulty with the Senator responding to what I had to say; when you purport to be entitled to comment on what our politicians do then you have to be prepared for some rebuttal. However, I did want to test her theory that answers to the questions I asked were readily available. I also felt it would be beneficial to see the detailed plans and costings on this key commitment in the public domain before the election. So I sent an e-mail to the party press office, into which I cut and pasted the original questions from the column and asked if the Senator could reply at some stage in the following weeks.
The questions fell into three categories. Firstly, I queried how the estimated cost of €180 million had been calculated, whether Labour was promising to spend this €180 million in addition to the funds already being paid out in child benefit and early childcare supplement, or whether it would replace monies currently being spent on building and/or incentivising childcare facilities.
Secondly, I asked how this plan for a nationwide network of state-run pre-school facilities was to be implemented, how many extra staff would be recruited to the public service to deliver it and what their wage and pensions bill would be.
Thirdly, I wondered whether making free pre-school education available to all children irrespective of their parents' capacity or willingness to pay was wise and whether it would further distort the existing inequalities in the childcare area.
I asked whether it would be better to target the resources at the children of relatively poorer parents through direct provision of childcare in disadvantaged areas or more funding to non-profit groups who provide subsidised childcare.
In light of the Senator's claim in her letter that the proposal had full costings and that the Labour Party had a "detailed plan", I asked whether they were prepared to publish both.
The press office replied saying they would forward the questions to the Senator. In the absence of a reply four weeks later I e-mailed again. The press office responded, saying they would have an answer for me the following week.
After two more weeks of silence, I received an e-mail on March 2nd from the party leader's programme manager, no less, telling me that my "recent" query had been forwarded to him and he would be dealing with it. I was puzzled not only that the now six-week-old query was being characterised as "recent" but also that the press office was not in a position to furnish what the Senator had described in her letter as an already existing detailed and fully-costed plan. Even though the matter was now being dealt with, apparently at the highest level, I heard nothing further in the following weeks.
On March 21st, I e-mailed the leader's office again asking whether there were any developments. I reminded them that my queries were all matters to which the Senator had said I would have received answers over the phone in January if I had bothered to ask. I had now gone to quite a lot of bother and still could not get them answered. I promptly received an e-mail requesting my phone number which I supplied by return expecting I would soon receive the long-promised answers to my questions. I was to be disappointed; I waited by the phone, but he never called.
It was now becoming clear that the Labour Party hoped that I and my questions would just go away. I e-mailed again a week later asking whether there was any news and finally got a four-paragraph reply. However, it did not address my questions but merely repeated the general basis of the party's support for pre-schooling as set out in their original announcement.
Apart from telling me that the €180 million figure refers to the cost of removing fees from pre-school, there were no answers to the specific questions raised. There were no details about what payments, if any, parents will continue to receive and nothing about the staffing of pre-school care.
The Labour Party obviously doesn't want to tell me what the costings and detailed plans for this pre-school proposal are. Maybe it's because it suspects my motives. Could it possibly be because no such details exist? If they do exist then maybe the Labour Party will give them to someone in the media at some point in the weeks before the election. Voters are entitled to know before they go to the polls whether Senator Kathleen O'Meara and her leader are to be believed on this "key" commitment.