Rabbitte outlines coalition plans to delegates

Unprecedented co-operation between Labour and Fine Gael will bring about a Government able to provide Irish people with an improved health system and additional Garda resources, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said today.

In an address to a Labour "think-in" in Cork, Mr Rabbitte told delegates that the "gun has gone off" for the countdown to the general election and that the work ahead was to show there is an alternative to the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat mantra that "this is as good as it gets".

"There are no aspirations, no vision, merely the clocking up of 15 years of ongoing failure in health, crime, education, and the things that matter to hard-working families," said Mr Rabbitte, referring to the current Government.

It is with health that a Labour-Fine Gael coalition will begin their reform, Mr Rabbitte said. He criticised the "failed ideology" of former PD leader Mary Harney in her role as Minister for Health, and what he described as Fianna Fáil's willingness to "put out the whisper that hospitals are a PD mess".

He claimed Labour will "build extra hospital beds and community care beds" and "scrap the plan to give tax breaks to super-private clinics," as well as reform accident and emergency systems.

Mr Rabbitte reiterated his "commitment" that taxes will stay down because there is simply "no need" for a rise in the present economic climate, though there is a "crying need" for a rethink on how taxpayers' money is spent.

He pledged his support for An Garda but stressed that "business as usual was not an option.

"We need more gardaí and more from the gardaí, working in the communities they know, serving the people they know," the Labour leader said.

Mr Rabbitte insisted that Labour will bring its own manifesto but that there will be health and crime plans produced in co-operation with Fine Gael, and an economic plan after the budget.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny will address the conference this evening.

Also speaking at today's conference was Eamonn Gilmore, Labour spokesperson on the Environment, who promised an overhaul of the planning laws under Labour-Fine Gael government.

"The current Government has presided over some of the worst planned development in Europe," he said.

"Over the past 10 years over half a million new dwellings have been built in this State. But this has not been matched by the provision of appropriate transport, social or community infrastructure.

"The result has been traffic gridlock, children who can not get a place in primary school and sprawling suburbs which lack basic community amenities. All of this is the result of bad planning," Mr Gilmore said.

He said a Labour-Fine Gael coalition will introduce a new planning act "which will integrate physical development with the transport, educational and social needs of local communities", abolish the €20 planning fee and reform an Bord Pleanála, while restoring democratic decision making in planning matters.