TÁNAISTE EAMON Gilmore has dismissed a call from a senior European Central Bank official for public sector pay cuts in the budget and a quicker austerity drive.
Saying he was annoyed with the intervention by ECB executive board member Jürgen Stark, Mr Gilmore said there was no pressure from the EU-IMF “troika” to accelerate the bailout programme.
“Our agreement is with the institution. It’s not with individuals within it,” he told reporters on the margins of an EU meeting in Brussels.
Mr Stark resigned last Friday but remains on the ECB executive board pending the arrival of his successor, most likely towards the end of the year.
His call for public sector pay cuts could collapse the Croke Park agreement if accepted by the Government but Mr Gilmore said the Coalition would not be doing that.
“Just as a Government, we are sticking to the terms of the programme, officers of the ECB should equally stick with the terms of the programme that they have agreed with Ireland.”
“We haven’t been asked by the troika to go beyond it. We don’t intend to go beyond it. I think that those kind of statements by Mr Stark don’t help the cause.
“We have a difficult job to do, we’re doing it, it’s working, we’re confident it’s going to succeed and that kind of encouragement from the sideline, we don’t need it and it doesn’t help what we have to do.”
Asked whether he planned to raise his annoyance with Mr Stark directly with the ECB, the Tánaiste said: “Hasn’t he retired? Hasn’t he resigned? Is he serving out the notice or something?”
Mr Gilmore said the Government had to be straight with the Irish people about how far its commitments with its international sponsors would go.
He said: “It has been confirmed as recently as last Friday by the commission that Ireland is implementing the programme, that we are implementing it very well, that if anything we are a model for its implementation and that as a country we’re honouring our commitments to that programme.
“By the same token, we also have commitments and agreements with public service trade unions in respect of pay and conditions and reforms in the public service and we’re also honouring those commitments.”