Cowen puts loyalty to party before country, claims Kenny

FINE Gael leader Enda Kenny said that the Taoiseach would have already called an election if he had any respect for the people whose lives he had destroyed.

Mr Kenny claimed that Brian Cowen was guilty of creating an economic disaster which would forever carry the logo, “made by Fianna Fáil”.

“However, for him, the supreme political virtue, the only virtue, is loyalty to party,” said Mr Kenny.

“He puts that before loyalty to country and people. That is the Fianna Fáil way, but it is not my way.” Mr Kenny accused the Taoiseach “of being one of the chief architects of our economy’s destruction and of condemning our people to a lost decade of unemployment, misery and emigration”.

He added: “I accuse him of hijacking our Republic and handing it over to a toxic circle of bankers, developers and speculators who, like a cancer, have sought to destroy our Republic from the inside out.

“I accuse him of attempting to deceive the Irish public about the causes of this crisis and his own responsibility for it.”

He said that when Mr Cowen was minister for health, he had insisted that his abject failure to reform and improve the health services was not his fault. Working in that department, he had explained, was like working in Angola.

“When his policies as minister for finance helped destroy our economy, he also denied all responsibility,” he added.

“He accepts responsibility for his actions, but in doing so he is not prepared to do the necessary and put the matter to the country.” Mr Kenny accused the Taoiseach of being “never there when there was a problem, never responsible when there was a failure and never to blame when things go wrong”.

Mr Cowen, he said, had shown himself to be a true disciple of his mentor, guide and predecessor, Bertie Ahern, “a man who believed that all the cribbers and moaners, as he called them, should simply commit suicide”.

He said that Mr Cowen in his four budgets, from 2005 to 2008, had increased spending by a massive 51 per cent, more than twice the rate of growth in the economy.

“In order to finance this massive spending surge, he did everything he could to ensure the property bubble lasted as long as possible,” he added.

Mr Kenny said that in 2005 Mr Cowen had decided to extend massive tax reliefs for property developers, past the 2007 election, against expert advice.

In 2006, at the peak of the housing boom, he had even assured buyers that Irish house prices were based on what he called strong fundamentals, he added.

Mr Kenny said the evidence from the Honohan and Regling and Watson reports, and from other sources, was clear.

It was the Taoiseach, when minister for finance, who authorised the Dublin Docklands Development Authority to transform itself from a planning body into a development agency, which borrowed massively from Anglo Irish Bank and resulted in taxpayer losses of up to €400 million.

It was Fianna Fáil, said Mr Kenny, who appointed Seán FitzPatrick and reappointed Lar Bradshaw to the board of the docklands authority, despite the obvious conflicts arising from their membership of the board of Anglo Irish Bank.

“The Taoiseach knew this and condoned it,” said Mr Kenny. “He let it happen.”

He added that it was Mr Cowen “who had supper with the board of Anglo Irish Bank in 2008, just before the bank’s shares were placed with the golden circle of investors and the bank began to lose its deposits”.

Mr Kenny asked if anybody in the country believed “that the guests talked about football and the weather at that fine supper’’.