Taoiseach to address Fine Gael general election candidates

Taoiseach Enda Kenny will address a special gathering of Fine Gael candidates in Dublin this week ahead of the general election.

The address will follow the completion of work by the party’s national strategy committee chaired by Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald.

The committee, composed of representatives of the parliamentary party, the national executive and Fine Gael headquarters, has been meeting on a regular basis for almost a year.

It will wind up its business on Wednesday morning and formally hand over its detailed plans for the election campaign to Mr Kenny.

In the afternoon, the Taoiseach will address the party’s candidates and is expected to outline the main themes of the Fine Gael campaign.

Director of elections

It is expected that because of her heavy ministerial commitments and campaign schedule Ms Fitzgerald will not be the Fine Gael director of elections.

There is speculation that the Fine Gael MEP for Dublin Brian Hayes, who was a member of the strategy committee, will be named as the director of elections on Wednesday.

Over the weekend some detail emerged about one of the key Fine Gael election commitments which will focus on the theme of making work pay.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance Simon Harris revealed that the party will pledge to reform the tax and welfare system to ensure that every worker in the country will be guaranteed €11.75 an hour.

Speaking on The Sunday Show on Newstalk yesterday the Wicklow TD said there had been a lot of debate about a living wage: "We believe passionately that if you were to heap the full cost of that on employers, particularly small businesses, they wouldn't be able to afford it and it could actually stall job creation.

“What we’re going to do instead, between the minimum wage, USC reductions and a new working family payment, we will guarantee every worker in this country an hourly rate of €11.75.”

State top-up

The plan is designed to provide low-paid workers with a top-up of €2.60 an hour from the State to encourage them to stay off the dole.

This would mean that a parent working a 40-hour week could receive an additional €104 a week – amounting to almost €5,000 a year – under the reform package.

The statutory minimum wage is already set to increase to €9.15 from €8.65 an hour from January 1st.

The election is almost certain to take place in February. If Mr Kenny asks President Michael D Higgins for a dissolution immediately the Dáil resumes as scheduled on January 13th, the election would take place early in the month.

However, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour are due to hold their national conferences over the following three weekends and many TDs believe the election will be not be called until they are over, with the likely dissolution date being Lá Fhéile Bríde, February 1st.