TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has ruled out the appointment of an independent chairman to cross-party talks on a four-year budget strategy.
“These are political talks between the parties and that’s who will be attending,” Mr Cowen said.
Opposition leaders are expected to meet the Taoiseach before the end of the week.
Mr Cowen was confident of cross-party consensus on the Government’s economic targets and suggested further consensus might be reached during the discussions.
“There is an indication that everyone agrees with the overall objective but what we have to do of course is . . . they are having a briefing today, the spokespersons, and later on in the week perhaps, having had an opportunity to assess it, we will have a meeting to see what further measure of agreement could there be beyond the fact that the target of 3 per cent has to be met by 2014. That’s a discussion we should have,” he added. The Taoiseach was speaking at the opening of Busy Beavers pre-school in Ballycumber, Co Offaly.