The new Programme for Government unveiled by our new Fine Gael and Labour coalition is worth reading and re-reading. It promises spending increases and re-prioritisation without many cuts, significant reform without hard targets, and a return to fiscal balance within time limits agreed with the EU and IMF.
Come on, who are they kidding? Listen to this Tom Waits song, (or if you are in a hurry read the lyrics) and then re-read the programme.
Note the number of subordinate clauses within the programme saying something like 'subject to available resources'. Yes folks, the large print giveth, the small print taketh away. In fact, the phrase 'subject to' appears 16 times in one 64-page document. If the funds aren't available to produce any of the increases in spending—and unless we strike gold enriched oil they won't be—then many of the statements in the programme won't be enacted.
We have seen this pattern of wasted promises in almost every programme for government since the foundation of the state. The aspirational character of the programme (442 'we will's) is overtaken by political expediency, wrangling, loss of momentum, and resource constraints. That's life.
This document shouldn't be called a 'programme', as if there were a finite number of easily describable steps to take us from where we are today to where the government would like us to be. This document is more visionary than that.
Perhaps it should be called the 'list of things we'd really like to do based on guesses about the future state of the world'.