Bertie Ahern, Cabinet speculation continues
Fianna Fáil and the PDs have published the details of their programme for government.
The document includes a commitment to keeping down personal taxes, the creation of a Garda Inspectorate and the building of a National Stadium.
The two parties' parliamentary groupings approved this blueprint for government this afternoon.
The programme contains many features already seen in Fianna Fáil's election manifesto, such as the creation of a special agency to fund infrastructural developments through methods including Public Private Partnerships.
The programme promises to keep taxes down and over the next five years remove all those on the minimum wage from the tax net.
The PDs appear to have won the battle on Campus Stadium Ireland. This document talks only of a world class National Stadium, built in the most cost effective way.
The programme commits the next government to the establishment of a Garda Inspectorate with the same powers as an ombudsman.
It also pledges to step up the rate of repatriation of failed asylum-seekers.
Meanwhile, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has given a strong hint that there will be major changes when his new cabinet is announced on Thursday.
At the end of today's parliamentary party meeting, Mr Ahern explained to party members that it wasn't going to be a reshuffle of the cabinet of the past five years.
According to those who attended the meeting, Mr Ahern spoke for a number of minutes explaining why he would be making changes. At one point he said that regional factors would not be a major consideration.
Many of the deputies and senators who attended the meeting took the Taoiseach's remarks to mean that there will be significant changes in his new cabinet.
