corps proposal, insisting that it came up with the idea first.

But Government said the Progressive Labour Party had paid only lip service to the idea -- as the party had when it stated it would come up with its own drugs strategy.

"To date, we have never seen their drugs plan,'' Social Services Minister the Hon. Quinton Edness said.

Government had been working on establishing a youth corps for several months, he added.

It had two proposals before it, one from UBP adopted candidate Mr. Ted Gauntlett and the other from teacher and anthropologist Mrs. Maria Thacker.

The Premier is about to appoint a special Cabinet committee to consider Mr.

Gauntlett's proposal.

"The PLP obviously heard about it so they came up with a national youth corps proposal,'' he said.

"It does not matter who did what first. What really matters is who the people of Bermuda believe has the integrity and competence to get the job done.'' The PLP claimed last week that a youth corps had featured on its platform since 1980. The idea was being revived in response to interest generated by constituents, and the "grim choices'' young people were making, party leader Mr. Frederick Wade said.

However, Mr. Gauntlett countered that after 13 years of the idea supposedly being on the PLP's platform, he was "still left wondering'' how the party would put it into practice since it had not given much "concrete detail''.

His proposal was several pages long and detailed as to how the corps would run, how it would be funded and who would take part.

He suggested soon-to-be-vacated Daniel's Head for the location and a national lottery to fund it.

PLP Senate Leader Sen. Alex Scott stated yesterday that various shadow ministers would be going into greater detail about the party's youth corps proposal over the next few weeks.

He said the Hon. Sir John Swan's backing of Mr. Gauntlett's proposal was "heartwarming''. "It certainly reinforces our view that we (will be) the next government -- to see the present ruling UBP party patterning itself on PLP policies and seeking to copy our National Youth Corps programme once again, even to adopting the same nomenclature.'' Sen. Scott conceded there were some differences between the PLP's proposal and Mr. Gauntlett's.

He said that whether or not the corps should be compulsory was a decision that would only be made after consultation with the Education Ministry and other parties. But there were arguments against it being compulsory, he said.

Mr. Gauntlett's proposal calls for a mandatory corps. All high school leavers, except those going on to college, would be automatically conscripted into the Community Services Corps, he said, in order to "catch the very youngsters who so desperately need positive direction''.

Sen. Scott pointed out a volunteer corps for high school leavers would be smaller, thus cost less to run.

Sen. Scott said the PLP's corps, like the UBP's would be for high school leavers and operate mainly on weekends and some nights.

The Bermuda Regiment would be expanded to include the corps as well as Police training, a coast guard and other education programmes.