Government letters to EU and IMF are craven and won't work, says Gilmore

THE LABOUR Party will “not be bound” by the EU-IMF deal because the detail of the agreement “amounts to a surrender of the country’s economic freedom”, party leader Eamon Gilmore has claimed in the Dáil.

Tánaiste Mary Coughlan challenged him to explain how he would get access to the €400 million that had to be borrowed each week to “keep this country going”.

During heated exchanges in the House, Mr Gilmore described the Government’s letters to the EU and IMF as “craven”, and expressed his anger at the detail of the agreement and the delay in the Opposition’s receipt of the “extraordinary” documentation dealing with the €85 billion agreement.

He later asked who wrote the letters to the EU and IMF that said “at the root of the problem is a domestic banking system which at its peak was five times the size of the economy”. He said the Government “told us on the night of the bank guarantee that it was €440 billion”. He said “this is an admission that the Government got it wrong from the beginning”.

Mr Gilmore said the Government was “effectively proposing to agree the budgets for the next three years with the EU and the IMF”. There was a “level of detail we have never seen before” involving spending and taxes with “specified commitments for property taxes, water charges and pensions, none of which has been legislated for by the House. It amounts to a surrender of the country’s economic freedom.”

Mr Gilmore said “the Labour Party cannot be bound by what is contained in the document, not only for democratic reasons but because it won’t work”.

The Government “is submitting letters and a document that are craven” and “won’t work”.

Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin also objected to the deal and said “no party should feel bound by any deal struck by this Government, which has no mandate or political authority” and which was “seeking to strap the people” into a “sell-out deal with the IMF and EU” that would “dictate the shape of the fiscal affairs of the State” in the future.

Mr Ó Caoláin said his party would not support procedures that did not allow “democratically elected representatives of the people to pass judgment on the sell-out with the IMF, the ECB and the EU”.

Ms Coughlan said “we must have access to funds in order to fund this State. We cannot access those funds on the market.” Labour whip Emmet Stagg retorted: “Whose fault is that?”

Ms Coughlan asked how the Labour Party would access funds for key public services, the social welfare system and the health system if it “does not agree to the measures being taken by the Government?”

The Tánaiste asked Mr Gilmore how he would “justifiably obtain access to the €400 million a week that we need to borrow to keep this country going?”. Labour president Michael D Higgins shouted “if you get out of Government you’ll be told”.

Ms Coughlan said the Labour leader would find himself in a position where the services provided by the State “will have to be cut by a further two-thirds”. She asked: “Is he saying to the people of Ireland that after July 2011 we will not be in a position to fund this country?”