This is an edited version of the speech delivered by the Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, at the party's Dublin conference on Saturday night
This country is facing a severe crisis. Rural communities are devastated and our heart goes out to them. The livelihood of tens of thousands of workers in the food industry is threatened, and our very prosperity could be put at risk.
It is now time to pull together and I appeal to everybody, in both rural and urban Ireland, to take every precaution necessary to keep the plague of foot-and-mouth disease out of this Republic.
Fine Gael must have the courage to renew politics. We must have the courage to turn our party once more into a national movement. We must have the courage to organise and to build and to offer an alternative Government to the people of Ireland. The people are yearning for change. They are sickened by the besmirching of politics, by the revelations from the tribunals, and by the perception of low standards in high places.
They are particularly disturbed that the Taoiseach, who has the power, the authority and the patriotic duty to restore and renew the political process, is failing to do so. He is bogged down in ambivalence, ambiguity and procrastination, and more and more people are becoming disillusioned and alienated from this democracy, and the Dail itself is becoming an irrelevance.
Fine Gael will lead the renewal of politics in Ireland, and provide an alternative to the people. Nothing has destroyed the integrity of politics more than the widespread belief and perception that those businesses who contribute to political parties enjoy an inner circle status, an influence over policy denied to the majority of citizens, which often works against their interest.
That perception is now so widespread that it is no longer possible to distinguish between contributions from those genuinely interested in democracy and those seeking to influence policy through their contributions. It is time we shouted stop. I did so on the day the Fine Gael parliamentary party elected me as leader. Since then the party has not and will not accept corporate donations.
Fianna Fail deny they will try to buy the next election, yet introduce legislation to allow them to spend an additional £1 million in the next election campaign, and we will need funding to campaign against them. We are not going to the inner circle. We are going to the people and asking for their support.
The people of Ireland gave their pennies to Daniel O'Connell at the church gates. They bought treasury bonds from Michael Collins when he was on the run. I know that they will rally to a New Fine Gael to give politics in Ireland back to the people, and to get this depressing government out of office.
We are a nationalist party, outward-looking and generous. Those who founded our party also founded the State, established the Army and Gardai. At a later date we established the Republic, negotiated Sunningdale and the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Over a generation ago we, uniquely among political parties here, pledged ourselves to the principle of consent. In this we led the way which has been followed by all other parties, including Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein.
It is this, the principle of consent, which is the foundation stone of the Good Friday agreement. We hope the agreement will be implemented in full and I pledge that Fine Gael in government will implement it in full and work it in full.
We have no time for those whose only mandate is history. One of the worst legacies of militant republicanism is that they have almost taken the Tricolour away from the people. If you visit someone's home and see the Tricolour on display, your first thought is that you are with people who support violence.
It is time we took back the national flag from the men of violence. It is time it again becomes a flag of peace with the white of peace, buttressed by the principle of consent, bridging the gap between orange and green.
It is difficult to be a wife, a mother and a public representative in a system designed by men and structured for men. When the Dail is reformed, and it will be, it will be reformed in this respect also.
Women's perspective on life must be fairly reflected in the Houses of the Oireachtas and in the local authorities. This will be done by ensuring that more women go forward for election and that more women are elected. We will ensure this at the general election, at the local elections and in the composition of Seanad Eireann.
I pledge that if in future I feel that a fair representation of Fine Gael women in the Dail, Seanad and in local authorities requires a quota system, I will bring such a proposal forward.
We will respect and support the role of women, whether at home or in the workplace. We will veto policies which seek to conscript women into the labour force. We will respect the choice of individual women to work in the home or outside the home. We will not introduce tax or welfare changes which bias women towards one role or the other, or whose purpose is to lock women into the labour force for life. Choice must depend on family circumstances.
Choice to work in the home or outside the home must be reversible.
One of the greatest faults of this Government is failure to provide affordable childcare. Young couples who are burdened with mortgages, who undertake the responsibility of work and home-making and childcare, have a near impossible task. Our State needs their skills to ensure all our prosperity. We must help, where help is needed most, in providing affordable childcare convenient to their homes or workplaces.
Though this Government did not cause our prosperity, they have, of course, the capacity to wreck it. Their legacy will take some time to eradicate: the new apartheid between rich and poor; the alienation in young people; inflation and congestion; the jigsaw of regional imbalances; the erosion of the quality of life; the demoralisation of public service workers; the mock battles in Brussels and the disillusionment of our European partners; the deterioration of basic services like health and education - these are the legacies of the present Government. They derive from bad politics, from worse economics, and will leave us with appalling social problems.
We pledge to continue the low corporate tax regime, which has been of such benefit in attracting overseas companies to Ireland. Wage inflation, traffic, general infrastructural congestion and future problems with power supply are all issues that are currently causing concern for foreign companies that operate on our shores. Government policy is not addressing this, it is actually accentuating these problems, and the proposal to abolish the employers' PRSI ceiling is causing particular concern.
The Government should drop this proposal.
In government Fine Gael will commit to taking all those on the minimum wage out of the tax net altogether.
Bonuses, overtime payments and wage increases are spoiled when taxed at 42 per cent. Fine Gael will introduce a new rate of tax at 30 per cent. This will apply to income above the standard rate. The range of the 30 per cent band will be extended in each budget to bring about a fundamental and radical change in the way persons on middle income are taxed.
The other choice on how to use budget surpluses is to provide a high level of public services for our citizens. The basic requirement is to provide health, education and public transport to a high standard.
FINE Gael stands by social partnership. In government we worked successfully with the partners and will do so again. Social partners negotiate the national contract between the State and its citizens. However, I believe that the present bargain is bad and that the present social contract is flawed.
It is a flawed contract because there is no real commitment to equal and affordable access to those public services that underpin and protect the living standards of men and women and their children in modern, industrialised, civilised democracies.
Choices between an American model and a European model, in so far as the management of an economy goes, are false choices, as there is no real difference between the two, simply variations on a theme.
It is in social policy that the main difference lies and this is why, despite my affection for many things American, that I am unashamedly and profoundly European.
At its simplest the European social contract says that if people work in a free market with all its risks, including the risks of redundancy, then the State should ensure that they and their families have ready access to high-quality, affordable health care, that their children have equal opportunity in education, that they need not fear old age but will be sustained by decent pensions and be honoured and cherished in their own communities, that if the business cycle runs low their living standards will be maintained by a focused social welfare code.
This is a desirable social model and one that is wholly consistent with a free market and flexible economy.
Fine Gael stands for a unified health system. It is unified at present at the level of accident and emergency, and the chaos which is the norm at the A & E departments of our principal hospitals is a very good illustration of how under-resourced the system is when all patients are treated equally.
We pledge ourselves to equal educational opportunity for all, and in government we will bring forward the necessary localised, customised and focused action to achieve this objective.
A decent social contract will ensure that workers may look forward to retirement with equanimity. They should not fear retirement or ageing, but should look forward to enjoying life supported by good pensions, secure and honoured in their own community among family and friends.
In particular, I will underpin the work of carers. We will give priority to elderly persons on waiting lists for operations which keep them independent, such as hip replacement and cataract removal operations.
A civilised society must be measured by how it treats its children and its elderly. In this, Fine Gael in government will not be found wanting.
Up to now I have spoken about domestic matters. But let us also think of the people in countries where, for one reason or another, abject poverty rather than prosperity is the order of the day.
The Government has failed to meet Ireland's commitment to overseas development aid. The voice of Ireland has been muted in those international organisations and places where the issue of debt relief for the world's poor is debated.
In government we will argue at all international fora, at the IMF and the World Bank, and at the United Nations that a new mandate of debt repayment for poor countries must be put in place, where the money required for basic needs, such as education and health, must be subtracted from a poor country's revenue base before any demands for debt repayment are made.
We now have a most talented generation of young Irish who, if they so wish, may work at home. Yet many young people feel alienated. They feel their future has been stolen. We think of the very high suicide rate among young men, of excessive drinking, of the aggressive behaviour by some who could not be described as coming from a deprived background.
Many young people are disgusted by the violence in society, by street violence which spoils so many social occasions, by a feeling of powerlessness when they are put upon without any provocation, and by the feeling of hopelessness at any prospect of the perpetrators being brought to justice.
The causes of street violence are complex, and the policies which will cure the disease need to be far more sophisticated and complex than the naive prescriptions presented by the present Minister for Justice.
John O'Donoghue's zero tolerance means zero action. For many of our people the problem is not zero tolerance but zero justice.
The procedures for dealing with complaints about judicial conduct are inadequate. New procedures must be put in place to allow instances of such misconduct to be investigated and established, to be followed by appropriate action. Fine Gael in government will introduce legislation to ensure such a procedure is put in place, and if the legislation needs to be underpinned by a constitutional amendment I will ask the people to do so.
We live in a beautiful country from Malin Head to the Mizen, from Wexford town to Clifden; we have a most varied and spectacular environment. Yet the Government have failed to protect this heritage. They have failed in particular to implement in Ireland the EU directives that protect the environment across the European Union.
This has resulted in five separate legal actions against Ireland for non-compliance with European law relating to waste management, water quality, water pollution and hazardous waste.
One of this Government's greatest failures is the inability to manage the waste we produce. Fine Gael will establish a national waste management authority. It will work with the local authorities to manage waste and, in particular, to implement a national programme of recycling and reuse.
I am conscious that recycling and reuse of waste products is usually not commercially viable. In government we will subsidise private sector companies engaged in these activities so that they will be commercially viable.
Recently in problems with the EU Commission the Minister for Finance displayed an arrogance that has categorised his period in office.
This is a major problem, especially now as Ireland confronts the foot-and-mouth crisis, and our diplomatic isolation in Brussels may come back to haunt us earlier than we expected.
In government, Fine Gael will recognise the importance of maintaining a good working relationship with our European partners, while at the same time protecting our economic interests and national sovereignty.
The quality of the food we eat is a matter of increasing concern for most of our people. As food crisis follows food crisis, as the foot-and-mouth catastrophe follows hard on the heels of mad cow disease, both farmers and consumers have a feeling of impending disaster.
These are dark days for our farm families and our rural communities. I want to see a revitalisation of our rural communities, our townlands, our villages and our towns.
So, when you go home and people ask you where does Fine Gael stand, tell them:
We stand for a new public morality. We will introduce a new code of ethics for all members of the Dail and Seanad, and will underpin the code with severe penalties.
We stand for the restoration of politics to the people, and for breaking the connection between politics and special interest groups.
We will not accept corporate donations and we will fund the next general election from the personal contributions of our fellow citizens.
We stand for an effective, efficient and unified health service, affordable to all who have health needs, with no more long waiting lists and nights on trolleys, where doctors and nurses and health care staff are given the scope, the support and the resources to do what they want to do: to provide for the needs of all patients without fear or favour.
We stand for equal opportunity in education, for the empowerment of the disadvantaged, for equal access to third-level education for young people from all backgrounds.
We stand for a clean and safe environment, for safe and wholesome food, for a country where the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat are vital considerations for government.
We stand for a country where age is honoured and respected and where independent living is encouraged and supported.
We stand for a country where youth is cherished, protected and encouraged, and where their contribution is recognised.
We stand for a proud and outward-looking Ireland, where our pride is no longer a threat to our neighbours but finds expression through sport, culture, the arts and the language rather than through politics.