Coalition progress report an 'affront' - Rabbitte

Labour Party leader Mr Pat Rabbitte has described the Government's recent Progress Reportas "an affront to the people now suffering the effects of spending cutbacks and broken promises".

Mr Rabbitte plans to use the Labour Party's private members' time in the Dáil this week to put forward a motion calling on the Government to acknowledge it misled the people during the General Election last year.

"The motion which I will move in the Dáil this week deplores the countless number of election commitments made by Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney which have been torn up and thrown in the bin since they were returned to power," he said.

Among the main election commitments the Government parties made in their election manifestos that Mr Rabbitte said they have failed to honour are: the pledge to eliminate hospital waiting list by 2004; the promise to recruit an additional 2,000 gardaí; the promise to extend medical-card eligibility to 200,000 people; and commitments to refurbish dilapidated school buildings.

The Labour leader criticised the leaders of the coalition, claiming "the extent of the deceit on the part of Mr Ahern and Ms Harney is unprecedented in Irish political history.

"The crisis in this directionless Government over cuts and broken promises is exemplified by the bickering between Fianna Fáil and PD ministers, the latter seeming to have forgotten that they were party to the con-job foisted on the electorate a year ago," Mr Rabbitte said.