The Progressive Democrats have become the first of the political parties to launch their election manifesto. Even though this election has not yet been called, their ninety-page manifesto was launched by the Tanaiste Mary Harney in Dublin this afternoon. In it, the party pledges that if returned to government, there will be no borrowing to fund current spending and there will be no increases in direct taxation.
The Party is also proposing the sale of certain state assets including the ESB. The cash from these sell-offs will be put into a newly created National Transformation Fund to help finance what the party says will be the most ambitious public capital investment programme in the history of the state.
The Green Party's economics spokesman described the PD proposals to sell off more state companies as a bankrupt policy. He said that the PDs appeared to have learned nothing from the Eircom fiasco and, in any event, money raised through sell-offs would be once-off and not a real response to underlying problems.
