Labour Party conference:Fianna Fáil Ministers are more interested in jockeying for position to replace Taoiseach Bertie Ahern than carrying out their duties, Labour's deputy leader Joan Burton has charged.
Opening Labour's conference last night, she said the Government had "become amazingly out of touch" and "indifferent" to the lives of ordinary people in the "few short months" since the election.
This, she claimed, was best illustrated by its decision to accept significant pay awards from the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Service.
"So, it's tough going for Bertie without his own Air Force One, Camp David and personal chef. Can I remind him that it's even tougher for many people living in Ireland at the moment."
Ms Burton delivered the opening address to the party conference in place of party leader Eamon Gilmore, who buried his mother, Celia, yesterday in Galway.
By announcing that he would stand down as Taoiseach before the next general election, Mr Ahern had "fired the starting gun in the succession stakes".
"The immediate future will be dominated by speculation as to when he will and who will replace him. Ministers are far more preoccupied with jockeying for position than they are in doing the people's business," she said.
Mr Ahern's upcoming appearance before the Mahon tribunal, where he would have to answer questions about the purchase of his house, was "the elephant in the room".
"Certainly, it is difficult to believe that a repeat of the confused, contradictory and unbelievable testimony we heard last September would not lead to an early exit from office.
"Surely, a repeat performance would present serious issues for the 'see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil' Green Party."
Acknowledging that Labour had "a disappointing general election", she said her party's attention would now turn to its own future and challenges.
Though the Government had "a comfortable majority", it may not last a full term, particularly given the instability caused by Mr Ahern's departure.
Faced with the breast cancer screening crisis, Mr Ahern became "more irritated" about the fact that some consultants earned more than he did than he was about the problems that were exposed.
"Mr Ahern simply refuses to accept the scale of the problems facing our health service," Ms Burton told some of the 1,100 Labour delegates who will gather in Wexford this weekend.
The president of the Labour Party, Galway West TD Michael D. Higgins, said following the election results "there is scope" for the party to advance.
One in six of all new voters supported the party, partly because of the party's stance on the Iraq war, the protection of civil liberties and support for civil unions for heterosexual and homosexual couples.
He believed "there is a great hunger" among many for the public interest to be given primacy over personal or sectional interests.
"This will require making a political choice between what is good, indeed necessary, for the citizenry as a whole, and the advancement, in a totally uncontrolled way, of such private interests as to undermine the very basis of society."
Public lands were being given over to private hospital developers, while property developers were getting lands in return for minimal spending on public transport.
"It is not an exaggeration to say that from the streets to the foreshore, there is no public space that is not under threat from speculative predators with straight-forward connections to the Government parties, and, scandalously, with parts of the public administrative system," said Mr Higgins.
