Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

It is clear that An Agreed Programme for Government is not being fully implemented while movement on some of the commitments is in the opposite direction. I will not speak about specifics. Will the Taoiseach indicate whether in the remaining two years the Government will reduce consistent poverty to below 2%? Will that be an achievement or a level hoped for in the same way as the 0.7% of GNP in development aid? Will an evaluation be carried out on how much of An Agreed Programme for Government will be implemented and has been implemented and the areas in which the Taoiseach must apologise for misleading people? For example, there was a commitment to plant 20,000 hectares per annum in forestry while only 11,000 hectares were planted. Therefore, that commitment does not stack up. Will an evaluation be done or will there be an amended programme for Government which will be more honest rather than this one which is fictitious in many ways? How can people judge the Government other than on the programme for Government which does not stack up?

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