No love lost as gloves come off and Gilmore takes Cowen to task

DAIL SKETCH:IT WAS a case of up close and personal in the Dáil yesterday when the Taoiseach was confronted by the man some of the polls are suggesting might have his job after the next general election.

In the early stages of Brian Cowen’s time as Taoiseach, he occasionaly fluttered his political eyelashes at Labour leader Eamon Gilmore.

In those dying days of the Celtic Tiger, there was speculation that Fianna Fáil and Labour would make up the coalition numbers in the aftermath of the next election. But all has since changed, changed utterly, and unprecedented political possibilities have been born in the opinion polls.

Anyway, Gilmore was never in a politically romantic mood to indulge Fianna Fáil and rejected Cowen’s gestures early on. He has since accused the Taoiseach of economic treason.

These days, the two are sworn political enemies, as Labour chases Fianna Fáil seats.

Gilmore has been relentless in his pursuit of the Taoiseach’s economic stewardship during his time in the Department of Finance and since he took over from Bertie Ahern.

Yesterday, he again tackled Cowen on his state of knowledge on the night of the Government’s bank guarantee in September 2008.

Cowen insisted he did not know Anglo Irish Bank was facing insolvency, despite attending an earlier meeting at which officials discussed the bank’s situation. “No, I didn’t,” said Cowen, with emphasis.

Gilmore suggested that it was “very strange” that AIB and Bank of Ireland would not have disclosed Anglo’s insolvency to the Taoiseach that night after they rushed to Government Buildings and “when senior government officials were talking about solvency issues in Anglo”.

The Taoiseach rounded on the Labour leader for his banking policy and referred to Gilmore’s political past.

“You are trying to reinvent yourself on that one as you were trying to reinvent yourself and remember what party you joined.. when you left UCD... you could not remember if it was Sinn Féin the Workers’ Party or the Workers’ Party,” snapped Cowen.

The Taoiseach was wrong on the academic bit. The Labour leader is a UCG graduate.

No doubt both men will return to their respective issues in the fullness of time.

There were tetchy exchanges also between the Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny on the scale of the cuts in December’s draconian budget.

When Kenny asked if it could be more than €4 billion, Cowen replied that the figure was being worked on by the Government.

Kenny spoke of how last week’s bank bailout news had left “hundreds of thousands of people shocked and confused and very, very angry”.

Cowen scathingly referred to “politics as usual” as he uttered figure after figure like an earnest accountancy student.

Kenny said his party would be happy to accept advice from the Department of Finance and engage constructively with the Government on the economy.

Cowen seemed unimpressed by the gesture, knowing that the Opposition parties scent political blood.

What are the chances of a cross-party consenus on the economy? Will pigs fly?