Cafe bars

The PDs were down in Wexford at the weekend for their pre-election conference and the media were with them, watching, listening, scribbling notes and scabbing free cups of tea and hot-cross buns.

We have a funny relationship with the PDs. Recent opinion polls show them drowning with anywhere between 1 and 3% support. Yet Monday's papers gave them as much, if not more, coverage than was given over to Labour's equivalent conference last week.

Of course, the PDs hold two of the most divisive posts in government so you could say that's why the media turns their amps up so loud. You could also ask why they have so much influence when they have such little support.

Anyway, McDowell was on tele sweating in front of the lights and being the authoratitve voice he undoubtably is. And his pledges were mostly economy based. No stamp duty for first time buyers. A new pensions scheme. Chopping of both tax rates. The type of stuff that will likely appeal to twenty somethings with jobs, cars and debts.

The tax thing is interesting. The PDs will cut high tax rate from 41 to 38% and the low tax rate from 20 to 18%. This means more euros for you and less for the government.

Depending on where you stand this can be a good or a bad thing. Low personal tax usually results in high public tax - bin charges, road tolls and high public transport costs, for example. Now if you have a lot of money and don't need to get the bus, this is great. But if you're an average worker, earning industrial wage, lower taxes will, overall, create the illusion of wealth - high public service costs will soon disolve this illusion. You will quickly learn what a sliced pan costs; people on higher rates still continue oblivious to it.

Looking at public services, it's hard to say that reducing taxes will be benficial. In general, they're not very good.

When they stopped throwing money at us, the PDs resurrected one of their better ideas. The cafe bar.

This McDowell baby has been doing the rounds for a while, but Fianna Fail, eager to keep those boys who pay for their tent at the Galway races happy, shot it down.

Michaeal wants to relax licensing laws so people who set up cafes can apply for alcohol licences. This is normal in European countries. It gives people an alternative to the pub.

Fianna Fail and their publican buds don't want an alternative to the pub. They want you to go to pubs and pay five euro for a drink.

Publicans are smart. They offer everything the continental cafe offers, in general (food, music, tv, waiter services). But they do it badly. Food in pubs is ok but limited and expensive. Music is dodgy, often played by middle-aged men for middle-aged people. Most of the time it's too loud and people are forced to resort to sign language. And tv either can't be seen, can't be heard or annoys everybody who doesn't want to watch.

The cafe-bar (have to add in the bar, don't want to frighten us too much) will do all these things better. For both consumer and community they are a good thing. It's about time we had a chance to talk, eat and drink in moderate ways for moderate prices.