PRESIDENCY:TÁNAISTE AND Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Eamon Gilmore has said that he would welcome the participation of the next president in the forthcoming constitutional convention.
The Labour leader was responding to a proposal from the party’s presidential nominee, Michael D Higgins that, if elected, he would explore the possibility of nominating members of the convention.
The plan to set up a group to review the Constitution was originally proposed in the Labour manifesto and became part of the programme for government. The body is expected to be established in the first quarter of next year.
Addressing the annual parliamentary party “think-in” in Tullow, Co Carlow, yesterday, Mr Higgins said that, if elected, he would seek to nominate some members to the convention.
Speaking afterwards Mr Gilmore said: “It is certainly something that I think is worthwhile”.
Commenting on the €713,000 retirement package for outgoing secretary general to the government Dermot McCarthy, Mr Gilmore said: “I do understand public anger and I think severance packages of that size are too high.
“That is why the Government has already moved to cap salaries in the public sector which of course will also mean that pensions in the public sector will be capped.
“That is why, too, we have decided that those types of caps in salaries and reductions which are applied across the public sector should also apply to the judiciary and that is why we intend to have a referendum on that matter later this year.”
On the prospect of social welfare cuts in the forthcoming budget, Mr Gilmore said: “The social welfare budget has to be reduced and Joan Burton is working on doing that in two ways: first of all by addressing the whole problem of over-claiming, and she has made considerable progress on that. And secondly by the reforms that she is pursuing.”
When it was put to him that child benefit cuts were considered unavoidable, he refused to comment: “I’m not going to get into individual benefits.”
Asked if tax rates would go up, he again declined to go into detail: “Revenues have to be increased: if you have to make an adjustment in the budget of €3.6 billion, you have to do that by reducing expenditure and that’s why the comprehensive review of expenditure is under way.
“The second way is by raising revenues. Again, the detail of all of that is something that will have to await the budget.” Asked about the commitments in the programme for government that there would be no increases in tax-rates and no reductions in welfare rates, he replied: “Yes, those are the commitments that are in the programme for government”.
When it was put to him that these commitments would not be adhered to now, he replied: “I am not going to get into predicting what’s going to be in the budget.”