THE MINISTER for Finance Mr Lenihan should stand down, Fianna Fáil backbencher Ned O’Keeffe said yesterday following the arrival of the EU/IMF delegation in Ireland.
“It’s a very serious indictment of Brian Lenihan’s policy. He should have taken corrective action to avoid these outside interests coming in and telling us how to run our country,” the Cork East Deputy said last night.
He added: “the Minister has failed the Government, failed the Irish people and failed the Fianna Fáil party. The orange lights were flashing when he got the job and he didn’t take any worthwhile action.” Mr O’Keeffe recalled that, at a parliamentary party meeting two months ago, he said Mr Lenihan “should stand down”.
Contrasting the current Minister’s performance with that of Ray MacSharry in the late 1980s, Mr O’Keeffe said: “Brian Lenihan has not done the business as he should have done.”
Meanwhile, Carlow-Kilkenny TD John McGuinness said he supported the call by his party colleague Sean Power, speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday night, for the Government to accept responsibility for its part in creating the economic difficulties.
“The truth needs to be told to the Irish people. There is a need to explain exactly what is going on with the EU and the IMF,” Mr McGuinness told The Irish Times.
Supporting Mr Power’s call for an early general election, he said: “A general election is needed to put before the people the plans for economic recovery along with a package of reforms, and you get a mandate from the people to do what is necessary.”
However, Cavan-Monaghan TD Margaret Conlon disagreed: “I don’t share Sean Power’s views.”
“Everybody has a responsibility but we also have a responsibility to be responsible as politicians,” she said. “The debate last night was on the ombudsman’s report on nursing home care. It wasn’t on the economy or the banks or the state of the country.”
Asked if she believed Mr Power was wrong to speak out, she said: “I am not going to tell anybody what to do. We live in a democracy.”
Mr Power’s call for an early general election was also opposed by Dublin South Central TD Michael Mulcahy: “if we still have a majority in the Dáil, we should serve out our mandate until June 2012 because we are the best party to be governing.”
Tipperary South TD Mattie McGrath, who lost the Fianna Fáil whip last June, was also opposed to an early general election: “we can’t even think of an election at the moment. From the very start of the crisis we [Fianna Fail] have not been up front. We’re treating the people like turkeys coming up to Christmas.”