Social Democrats

The party holds that the ownership settlement of Article 6 is now the constitutional order of the Republic and should be administered rather than reopened, and that the useful argument concerns how quickly provision expands, how the plan handles error, and how a person contests a decision taken about them.

Its method is incremental, and it has proposed no measure since 1974 that would have required an amendment. Its regulated mixed economy operates within the limits of Article 6 and concerns the smaller categories of goods, and the party accepts that the commons and the productive assets are outside it.

The party supported the draft and proposes no amendment.

It voted for Resolution 61 and signed no joint standing decision, holding that a commitment registered by parties rather than enacted by the chamber has no place in the record of the Republic.

Progression measured, not asserted

Article 41(3) lets any person require that a measure be reasonable: coherent, resourced, capable of achieving progression within a stated time, attentive to those in greatest need, and open to review. The party wants each of the five limbs reported against annually, so that progression above the minimum core is stated in figures for each year.

Article 41(3)Article 267

Administration a person can argue with

Article 161 gives a hearing before an adverse decision and an appeal to an independent body and then a court, and Article 162 makes the Republic pay for unlawful administration. The party wants the procedure published as a single readable document and the Defender of Rights resourced to use it.

"Every party here promises the citizen a right. We would settle for the citizen being told, in one page, how to complain about a decision and who answers."

Social Democrats, Programme for the first Assembly, section 2

Article 161Article 162Article 252

Error treated as a cost of the plan

Article 105 funds new cooperatives and experiment and admits the failure of an experiment as a cost of the plan. The party wants that admission used, with each discontinued experiment reported in the annual account and with no adverse consequence attaching to the body that reports it.

Article 105Article 104

The party maintains informal contact with the Party of European Socialists and seeks no formal affiliation. It supports Ukraine, opposes the parties of the far right in Europe, and takes no position favourable to Russia.

Twenty-seven per cent of respondents describe the party favourably and 29 per cent unfavourably. Forty-one per cent say they do not know enough about it to answer, the highest such figure recorded for any list in the chamber.

Seventeen per cent say they would consider voting for it. The projection reduces its share by about seven tenths of a point, on the ground that its positions on the six subjects of the campaign are each held by a larger list.