Writing cheques they simply can’t cash - that is the view of the Government by Fine Gael’s Lucinda Creighton.
No - the Government hasn’t started it own cheque kiting racket, but its costings in relation to the new Programme for Government would keep a mathematician on their toes.
Part of the new PfG is the addition of 500 new teaching posts over the next three years.
Lucinda posed a question to Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe as to how much these 500 extra teachers would cost and was told - plainly and simply - that he didn’t know!
Naturally enough, Lucinda was left puzzled - as were the rest of us.
“Less than two months before the budget, Fianna Fail and the Greens are signing up for commitments that they haven’t even costed,” she said.
The estimated cost of the plan is in the region of €32m a year.
But as Lucinda says, ‘at a time when the Government desperately needs to cut the public sector wage bill, it is ridiculous and dishonest to be making uncosted commitments in response to unrealistic demands’.
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