GOVERNMENT POLICIES were “making the recession worse” and continue to “pander to the needs of failed banks and their investors”, Fine Gael’s enterprise, trade and employment spokesman Richard Bruton has told the Dáil.

Mr Bruton said the Government had “taken an economic model that was the envy of the world and destroyed it”.

Opening a Fine Gael Private Members’ motion on the economy, Mr Bruton said “economic planning has not been in vogue in Ireland in recent years. In good times it was seen as a quaint folly. In bad times it has been avoided because everyone is so busy, and times are so uncertain.” He said: “It’s ironic that Ministers who pour scorn on a person opening a corner shop without a business plan seem quite content to run their Government . . . without a clear destination.”

He said his party laid down the components for “the sort of recovery plan that Ireland needs”, including “bold investment in key arteries”; new ways to get credit flowing to business; cutting employer costs for new recruits; a competitiveness action plan, and “aggressive removal of bottlenecks that hamper key sectors”.

But Minister of State Martin Mansergh said the Government’s economic strategy was about creating jobs. He pointed out that a healthy banking system was a prerequisite for recovery, and the Government was determined that AIB and Bank of Ireland would supply credit to small business.

The Government had acted decisively, he said, and the hard decisions were beginning to bear fruit.

Tom Sheahan (FG, Kerry South) said “there are many homemakers in this country who would have made better ministers for finance than the former or present minister. They wouldn’t have spent as [Charlie] McCreevy did.”

But Mr Mansergh said this view “didn’t actually reflect Mr McCreevy’s policy. He reduced the national debt, put a huge amount of money into the National Treasury Management Fund, and he introduced policies to encourage saving.”