Burton with FG in stance on bailout, says Shatter

MINISTER FOR Justice Alan Shatter has insisted Labour Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton agrees with Fine Gael members…

MINISTER FOR Justice Alan Shatter has insisted Labour Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton agrees with Fine Gael members of the Government in relation to the prospect of a second bailout for Ireland.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny last week rejected suggestions the State would require further aid because of fears that falling growth rates would threaten recovery. Minister for Finance Michael Noonan described the speculation as “ludicrous”.

Mr Shatter was asked about Ms Burton's apparent refusal to rule out the possibility in a Sunday newspaper interview when he appeared on RTÉ Radio One's This Weekprogramme yesterday. "I don't think there's any difference between colleagues. I think that you get semantical differences when people say things. I think the reality is, we're on track. We're meeting our international obligations and our fiscal targets," Mr Shatter said.

“It’s very important we continue to do so, but in the context of our engagement with the troika there’s continuing discussions going on at a technical level to see the extent to which we can delimit the impact on this State of the fiscal difficulties we have, delimit the interest payments that have to be paid. What’s absolutely crucial – what the Taoiseach said in the week just gone and Minister Noonan has said and I think Minister Burton also agrees – is that not only do we have to address our fiscal difficulties, we have to do what we can as a Government to get the domestic economy working again.”

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Mr Shatter said he could not pre-empt “where things travel this year”. A lot depended on what was happening at European Union level. “These are all matters which on a week to week basis seem to be changing,” he added.

A Sinn Féin spokesman said a party delegation will meet troika officials in Dublin today. Party leader Gerry Adams will be accompanied by deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald and finance spokesman Pearse Doherty. Two members of Sinn Féin’s economic advisory group, Eoin Ó Broin and Joanne Spain, will participate, the spokesman said.

“Gerry Adams has said that the party wishes to discuss, with the troika, its economic alternatives to the austerity programme being pursued by the Fine Gael and Labour Government,” he added.

Labour Minister of State Alan Kelly echoed Mr Noonan's comments about the possibility of a second bailout when he appeared on The Week in Politicson RTÉ One last night. "It is crazy and ludicrous to start talking about a second bailout. It is all right for these commentators and journalists to come out and state that. They are not the Government; they are not the people who have to take the actions we have to take from day to day." The Government believed Ireland would "be back in the markets in 2013 at some level", he said.

Citigroup chief economist Willem Buiter sparked the controversy by warning last week that Ireland should have a bailout “on standby”.

Mary Minihan

Mary Minihan

Mary Minihan is Features Editor of The Irish Times