The Bórd Snip Nua report is a Government report and not that of economist Colm McCarthy, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has insisted as he accused the Government of being “cowardly” in its response to the publication.
Mr Gilmore said that “when a Government asks consultants to bring in recommendations on what Government should be doing anyway, Government already knows what the recommendations are going to be”.
He added: “Let’s get real about this. This was not Colm McCarthy’s report. This is a Government report. There is nothing in that report that Brian Lenihan and Brian Cowen did not know about before that report was published and that’s why it wasn’t published until the Dáil went into recess because they knew what was in it. They knew the kind of controversy it was going to create.”
He said the Cabinet wanted to maintain “deniability” about some of the unpopular proposals and “frankly I think the Government is being cowardly. If you look at some of the problems that McCarthy has identified in the running of our public services - how many reports have we got about reform of the public service in the lifetime of the present Government?
“We had a report from the OECD about the present Government and nothing done about it. They told us for example that they were going to deal with the excess numbers in the HSE as a result of the amalgamation of the health boards - nothing done about it.
“A lot of McCarthy is a litany of the things that Government should have been doing over the years to reform the public services, a litany of some of the mistakes that they made that now have to be corrected.”
He added that “you have to wonder why the Government waited for Colm McCarthy. A lot of what’s in the report are things that this Government should have been doing.
“A lot of the problems he has identified are things that were caused by 12 years of Fianna Fáil. A lot of the agencies that he now says should be pulled back into the parent Departments were gnecies set up by Fianna Fáil in Goverment.”
“A lot of the fragmentation, some of which was added to by the botched decentralisation, were things that were caused by the present Government.
“There is a political problem, that the public lack confidence that the people who dug the hole are going to be able to get us out of it.”
The Labour leader was speaking at a press conference to outline the party’s campaign for the Lisbon treaty referendum, and said that the treaty and dissatisfaction with the Government “should be kept separate and I don’t think political games of that kind should be played either with the Lisbon treaty or with the financial affairs of the country. I think the people are perfectly capable of making a distinction between the two issues.”
Mr Gilmore said the “hands off” approach taken by the Government to the report “is a classical political game being played by Government.
“They are trying to pretend that this report has really got nothing to do with them at all. This is from some guy called McCarthy who has come up with all these ideas and they’re going to see now what way the wind is going to blow.”
The proposals “that aren’t flying they’ll say that was Colm McCarthy and the other ones they’ll say they’re going to do this”.
