It may have cost taxpayers €250m, taken aeons to publish its weighty conclusions and few people believe anyone will ever be prosecuted over its findings, but parsing the implications of the 2,300-page Moriarty report provides copious fodder for the Sunday broadsheets.
Promises, promises … is there no end to them as the February 25 election day draws nearer? At least the electorate is beginning to get a clearer idea of what to expect on the tax front when the new government takes power. And, increasingly, it is looking like Fine Gael’s pronouncements on just about everything are the ones to watch.
Many election promises seem destined to be broken at the best of times but in the worst of times, they are likely to gather dust on the shelves of the parties’ headquarters whether there is a will to implement them or not.
In the latest bizarre political twist, possibly the most important single piece of legislation to be enacted during the term of the last Dáil, was sacrificed quickly on the altar of political expediency.
The sun may be about to set at last on this particular empire but the Government is making sure its friends and supporters will be well looked after when it eventually leaves office.
Civil service pensions may be brought in to line with private sector pensions if a proposed Fianna Fail reform goes ahead.
A major change to the social welfare system will allow job-seekers to continue to receive full benefits while working in the private sector – if they also carry out community work. The Minister For Social Protection, Eamon O Cuiv, is to roll out a new “hybrid” social welfare scheme where people who do 19.5 hours community work a week will be able to take up jobs.
Imagine your chances of keeping your job if you didn’t bother showing up? Yet, just 17 of the country’s 166 TDs turned up for work at Leinster House every day in the first two weeks after a clocking-in system was introduced on March 1.