Irish Public Spending: The Bord Snip report, which will be published today, recommends a raft of spending cuts amounting to €5.2 billion and involving 17,000 State job losses; a €300 million reduction in the Health Service Executive’s paybill and the most radical overhaul of local government since the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. However, the decision of Taoiseach Brian Cowen to reverse his position on publishing the report does not mark a departure from other Victorian era relics in Irish public governance; endemic conservatism and opacity. With the Oireachtas on its 2-month summer holiday break, he hopes that the prospect of the usual vested interests building up steam on the basis of leaks, will be thwarted while the Opposition will have to outline their positions on the cut proposals.