THE ADMISSION by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny that his party’s plan to cut public service numbers will cost up to €1 billion has come under fire from Fianna Fáil which has accused him of election gimmicks.
Mr Kenny yesterday repeated his party’s commitment to reduce the number of public servants by 30,000 but accepted the cost “could be as high as €1 billion” in voluntary redundancy packages.
A party spokesman pointed out that the figure should be viewed in the context of the €10 billion in savings to the exchequer that the plan would ultimately deliver.
Fianna Fáil spokesman on public sector reform Seán Fleming said Mr Kenny’s “forced confession” about the cost of the lay-offs exposed “Fine Gael’s cynical campaign of election gimmicks”.
The first major TV debate of the campaign – between Micheál Martin and Eamon Gilmore last night – saw sharp exchanges on budgetary policy, the EU-IMF bailout and the introduction of the bank guarantee.
Mr Martin repeatedly accused Mr Gilmore of “chopping and changing” his position over the past three months on the target date for the reduction in the budget deficit and on tax policy.
“You keep changing in response to the focus groups,” Mr Martin said.
Mr Gilmore said it was the Fianna Fáil Government which had “chopped and changed” its policy and its targets over the past two years. “We have taken decisions,” said Mr Martin. “You have taken the wrong decisions,” replied Mr Gilmore.
The two men also clashed on the EU-IMF bailout, with Mr Gilmore saying it would have to be renegotiated and Mr Martin insisting there could be no unilateral renegotiation.
On the issue of the bank guarantee, the Labour leader said it was the worst decision taken by an Irish government since independence. Mr Martin responded by accusing him of “bluffing and conning”, saying there would have been immediate and catastrophic results if the guarantee had not been introduced.
Earlier Mr Kenny also rejected the Labour Party’s approach to renegotiating the EU-IMF bailout deal.
“This is a case of understanding how negotiations and diplomacy actually work in the European context and it is about building those relationships, which I’ve been working on for a few years in terms of my participation within the European People’s Party,” said Mr Kenny.
Mr Kenny declined to take part in the TV3 debate and instead addressed a “town hall style meeting” in Carrick-on-Shannon. He spoke to a full house – all the chairs were taken 15 minutes before the debate began, leaving 150 attendees standing at the back by the time the meeting got under way at 8pm, the same time as the TV3 debate.