BOTH FIANNA FÁIL and Fine Gael will today unveil their financial policy plans today, as the general election begins to come into view in 15 days’ time.
Fianna Fáil will unveil its fiscal plan – likely to be largely based around the earlier provisions of the EU-IMF deal and the Four Year Plan – at the party’s headquarters on Mount Street in Dublin at 11am.
Party leader Micheál Martin will be absent, as he is home canvassing in Cork, so the policy will be launched by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan and the party’s new spokesman on financial sector reform, Michael McGrath.
Enda Kenny will launch his own party’s financial plan – ‘Less Waste, Lower Taxes, Stronger Growth’ – alongside his own finance spokesman, Michael Noonan, at his party’s election headquarters on nearby Leeson Street, at the party’s election HQ.
Both news conferences are likely to be dominated by questions about yesterday’s Department of Finance announcement, which stated that the further capital due to be injected to Ireland’s banks was to be delayed until after the election.
While the move has been described as a political ‘stroke’ – with a new government being burdened with an immediate banking problem – some will argue that delaying the recapitalisation gives a new government a chance to shape its own affairs.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, meanwhile, is attending a ‘leaders’ breakfast’ event organised by the Dublin Web Summit, where he is to announce details of his party’s technological policies and announcing scholarship programmes for students of the major developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Gilmore then travels to canvas in Maynooth and Sandyford, and spend the afternoon in Dublin before his party’s full manifesto launch tomorrow morning.
The Greens’ leader John Gormley will canvas in Swords with his predecessor Trevor Sargent, while Sinn Féin will launch its overall party manifesto in Dublin with Gerry Adams, Mary Lou McDonald, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and Pearse Doherty.
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