Cowen can't expect Opposition to solve crisis for him - Gilmore

THE TAOISEACH cannot expect the Opposition to solve the financial crisis for him, expect the public to pay for it and then stay on in Government, according to Labour leader Eamon Gilmore.

Speaking in the Dáil in advance of today’s meeting of the two main Opposition party leaders with Brian Cowen to discuss the economy, Mr Gilmore asked where was the Taoiseach’s credibility.

During noisy and testy Leaders’ Questions in the wake of financial briefings to the Opposition, Mr Gilmore said the Taoiseach would have to “examine the process you want us to engage in”. He said “the Government got us into this mess and every prediction and projection made over the past two and half years has been incorrect and dramatically incorrect in most cases”.

He told the Taoiseach: “You want the Opposition to solve the problem for you. You want the people of the country to pay for it and meanwhile you want to stay in office. Do you seriously expect us to agree to this?”

However, Mr Cowen retorted that while he did not want to say anything negative in advance of the meeting about “building consensus”, he said the Labour party’s proposals to resolve the financial crisis in 2008 “would have brought down the banking system and hundreds of thousands of jobs would have been lost. That is a fact.”

Mr Gilmore had said Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan throughout the year kept repeating that “the worst is over, that we have turned the corner”.

The Minister said there was €7.5 billion remaining of budgetary adjustments to be made up to 2014. But the briefing to the Opposition’s finance spokespersons showed that to be “way wide of the mark”, and the new figure to be “significantly higher”.

Mr Cowen said however, it was not simply about the growth rate or the current budget deficit. “There was also the banking issue, which provided a spike in our current budget deficit for this year,” he said, “of the order of 20 per cent”. He added: “The budget framework set for December is broadly in line with projections. As bad as things have been, it is not correct to say that things have got worse”.

Mr Gilmore said: “The Taoiseach said the cost of the banking crisis would be borne by the sector and assured us we would have to pay nothing for it. The Taoiseach got that wrong by €45 billion or €50 billion. We were given the growth projections last year but the Taoiseach is now saying these are wrong and must be revised.”

He asked if the Government seriously expected the Opposition to agree to “solve the problem” while expecting the public to pay and then remain in office.

But the Taoiseach said that just last week Mr Gilmore felt it was possible to “meet the requirements of the situation while protecting major areas of expenditure in all and every circumstance”.

He added: “All of us are having to contemplate areas of policy change which we would not wish to do in normal times”.