Kenny labels Government 'worst in living memory'

FINE GAEL:NONE OF Taoiseach Brian Cowen's colleagues in the election "will be able to dodge responsibility for driving Ireland into the arms of the IMF", the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said in his final address to the 30th Dáil.

Mr Kenny wished Mr Cowen well and said that despite disagreeing strongly “with many Government policies that the Taoiseach and his party have pursued, I have no doubt about his integrity as a person or as a politician”.

But he said, “the Taoiseach is retiring after leading what many people consider to have been the worst Government in living memory. It displayed serious political misjudgment”.

He added: “His colleagues in Fianna Fáil are required to be accountable for their collective governance of this country over the past 13½ years. None of them will be able to dodge responsibility for driving Ireland into the arms of the IMF.”

Focusing on the election, he said people who had lost their jobs, their homes and their loved ones to emigration were angry.

“In this election we are offering them a chance to turn their anger into action. We are asking them to work with us and vote for us because we have a plan to get Ireland working. Our plan has been worked on for the past three years. It is sensible, realistic and credible.”

He said “public Ireland is not working at the moment. People in personal and private Ireland who are lucky enough to have jobs are working harder than ever”.

The trouble “is that at a time when Ministers have two or three jobs, the Government is not working. The systems on which people depend are not working or are not working as well as they should in the interest of the people. We will change that with our plan to get Ireland working. Our plan gives clarity, credibility and light to what will be a difficult journey to a better future ahead.”

He highlighted Fine Gael’s five main priorities: to protect and create jobs; to introduce fairer budgets and keep taxes low; to change and create a completely new health system; to provide for smaller and better governance including cutting public service costs by €5 billion, and to create a political system that achieves more and costs less with the government leading by example.

He reiterated that “we will cut the number of politicians by over a third. We will impose a ceiling on higher public service salaries. We will introduce car-pooling for Ministers. We will ensure proper accountability for decisions” and they would abolish the Seanad.

As he was speaking, Green Party TD Paul Gogarty asked “where is the statesman-like speech?”

Mr Kenny said the Fine Gael plan “will replace old Government cynicism with new government compassion, and old Government indifference with new government insights”.

He added that no incoming government elected by the people has ever faced the scale of the economic challenge now facing the country.

“We have strong and powerful friends in Europe and beyond, and we need them,” he said.

“But it is for us to face this crisis in the first instance. Our time is analogous to that of the first government of the State. That government built a new young country from the ruins of a country. The next government will have to build a new future from the ruins of our economy.”