Fine Gael TDs and senators have voted unanimously to endorse party policy for a national recovery bank and against the Government’s National Asset Management Agency (Nama) plan.
Speaking after an extended discussion at the annual Fine Gael "think-in" in Cavan, finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the unanimous vote in support of opposing Nama was because the principles on which it is based are flawed.
Nama had to be changed "root and branch" and the Government would have to "abandon the principle of paying anything other than market value for these loans", he said.
Asked about comments by former Fine Gael leader and taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald that a defeat of the Nama legislation could place the economy in the hands of the International Monetary Fund, Mr Bruton said:
"The notion that we should pass legislation that's fundamentally flawed, and that that would in some way be in the national interest, is profoundly objectionable to me.
"The duty of an opposition is to put government's proposals under scrutiny; where they are profoundly wrong and based on flawed principles, we should oppose them.
He said it would be better to have an election and "clear the air", putting in a government committed to tackling the country's problems in a coherent way.
"That would be a better outcome in my view than the political opportunism that seems to be suggested, of Opposition supporting flawed proposals," Mr Bruton said.