TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen was like “an ostrich finally removing its head from the sand”, according to Labour deputy leader and finance spokeswoman Joan Burton.
She said Mr Cowen’s speech at Dublin City University earlier this week was “perhaps a first acknowledgment of his and his party’s role in Ireland’s economic crisis”.
Responding to Mr Cowen’s claim that Ireland’s economic sovereignty would have been “gravely threatened” had he not taken action, Ms Burton claimed there was still a threat to the economy from the leadership of Mr Cowen and Fianna Fáil.
“Here is an ostrich finally removing its head from the sand, perhaps. In his speech in DCU, Brian Cowen slaughtered a number of Fianna Fáil sacred cows,” she said in a statement.
While Mr Cowen was correct that he inherited a menu of policies from previous finance ministers Bertie Ahern and Charlie McCreevy, Ms Burton commented: “He cannot pin all of the blame on those two office-holders. In particular, he not only ignored, but actively rejected clear and present warnings given by myself on numerous occasions.
“Fianna Fáil conceded that the spectre of millionaires and billionaires paying no tax was completely unacceptable, but it was years before Brian moved on the issue, and then, only in a very limited way,” she said.
In December 2005, when Mr Cowen announced the abolition of property-based tax reliefs, she pointed out his decision would not take effect until 2008 at the earliest, and “even longer in the case of private hospitals”.
On stock exchange regulation, she said: “It was his indulgence of contracts for difference that allowed the small Irish Stock Exchange, dominated by bank shares, to become a casino for high rollers to gamble.”
Looking ahead to the publication of the two initial banking inquiries later this month, Ms Burton said: “Fianna Fáil have framed the terms of reference so as to exclude from scrutiny the most costly mistake of all – the bank guarantee.”
She added: “Putting Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide at the heart of the blanket guarantee was the most momentous blunder made by a sovereign Irish government since independence.
“This, along with poor management of the public finances overall, has put the country’s hard-won sovereignty at risk.”
Ms Burton concluded: “The reality is that our economic sovereignty has been and remains gravely threatened.
“Ireland, as a consequence of his and Fianna Fáil’s leadership, is now subject to the dictatorship of the bond market and is at the mercy of the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Commission on whom we now depend to ensure our borrowing costs are manageable.”