Rainbow parties' goals dismissed as "wishy washy"

FIANNA Fail has dismissed the Government parties "21 Goals for the 21st Century" document as "a holding statement full of wishy…

FIANNA Fail has dismissed the Government parties "21 Goals for the 21st Century" document as "a holding statement full of wishy washy aspirations".

In a statement headed "21 Holes in the 21 Goals", the party said the Government document was "politics at its worst - all smoke and mirrors with no real substance".

It claimed the Government is united not by ideology or by issues but by expediency. The electorate would ensure that it is dissolved. The statement criticised the Government's handling of the peace process, accused it of overspending and said it has failed to dent long term unemployment.

It says the Government has introduced social welfare increases below the inflation rate and allowed thousands of children to leave school without a proper education. It challenged the Government to state what rates of tax it would introduce.

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"The Rainbow failed to retrieve vital EU antipoverty funding. Homelessness is on the rise. Reports and task forces are no substitute for resources."

Litter was piling up; air and water pollution was on the increase; the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, had "limped from one crisis to another", while the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, at a time of financial hardship for farmers, said: "they are rolling in it".

On education, it accused the Government of wanting to spend millions on "ideologically driven quangos while schools were short of basic facilities. Every anticrime measure in the Government's "21 Goals" document had been proposed by Fianna Fail in opposition, and the Government had presided over "a drugs plague that is ravaging communities".

"They say it's a partnership that works," the statement said.

"On June 6th the people of Ireland will tell them that it's a partnership that deserves to be dissolved."