LATE LATE SHOW/NOVEMBER 12TH:Ryan Tubridy referred to serious cuts being imposed in the budget and then asked Eamon Gilmore:
“If you are in power in the next year or so, will you reverse those cuts?”
Gilmore: No.
Tubridy: Why not?
Gilmore: No, because once a decision is made . . . We have to be straight with people. The politics of promises is over. I’m not going to go around the country and tell people here and there that cuts that were made will be reversed after the election.
NEWS AT ONE
NOVEMBER 25TH
Sean O’Rourke asked (after playing the clip from the Late Late Show): What is the status of the commitment? Is it still the case that the answer is no when you are asked will you reverse the cuts?
Gilmore: Yes, that is the case. I don’t think that anybody in the coming election can get into promises that will not be deliverable after an election.
O’Rourke: . . . Even if they are blatantly unfair?
Gilmore: If they do things that are blatantly unfair we will look at them, case by case, on their merits.
O’Rourke: So you might reverse the cuts?
Gilmore: Yes. Let me give you one example of it. The proposal to cut the national minimum wage is not something that the Labour Party would agree with. That is something I would seek to reverse.
O’Rourke: It’s not a budgetary matter.
Gilmore: If there is something that we consider to be particularly unfair, then we will look at that with a view to reverse .