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The Thing About Lisbon and its Focus…
Read more about: Fianna Fail, National Development Plan 
Is that news which slips out now has got to be bloody good to dislodge other politics stories from the news and really really good to last more than one turn of the news cycle (and how long is that now?). Which is why its a good time to draw some more lines and circles around what will get delayed in the NDP.
Dan Boyle has it spot on, now is the time to borrow and invest in the future.
I recall that at some point after the election Bertie was claiming that his side deals with the independent TDs were no big deal as they were all just commitments to deliver things in the NDP for the relevant constituencies and since all NDP projects would be delivered, there was no real concession. I wonder what the status of that is now?
I think we are about to see a clear reason as to why Fine Gael are not able to get reelected into office. The FFers are now backtracking on the very promises, on which there could be now going back on, that helped win them the election. Great promises of a bright future and steady steering of an economy where investment for the future would continue as a priority. Well guess what it was a big fat one and while the scale of deficit could not be predicted a deficit was not a big surprise. Okay FG pulled the same trick to an extent but the NDP was FF’s vehicle.
Here comes the big question? Did Brian Cowen set FG up last week in the Dail for this moment? Did he say Fine Gael were not pulling their weight, were risking the campaign so that when the NDP failures were exposed this week the poor folks of FG would not, as they should, attack FF’s false promises for fear of being exposed as taking a cheap shot, endangering the treaty etc.
I am reminded of Harry Enfield’s character Tim nice but dim. Do FG have the nerve to play politics at this level. If Fianna Fail were in opposition do you think they would leave such a cheap trick slide. This bugs me about FG and its feels like they are walkovers.