IF WORDS have any ordinary meaning, the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, is saying No to his Coalition partner, John Gormley. A number of influential opinion leaders have advocated in the last week that we need a national consensus on the budgetary measures required over the next four years to bring us out of the biggest financial crisis in the history of this State. Former taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, was one of the first to advance such a proposition in his column in this newspaper last Saturday.
He was joined in recent days by former EU commissioners, Peter Sutherland and Ray MacSharry, the latter being the minister for finance who presided over the spending cuts which restored the economy in 1987. It is no idle speculation to suggest that at least some of them were acting in consort with some senior figures in Fianna Fáil to ensure that the European Commission can be given a guarantee that any four-year plan can, and will, be implemented.
The Green Party is seeking the establishment of an all-party forum to discuss a four-year plan to deal with the “grave” state of the public finances. The forum would include the leaders and finance spokesmen of Fine Gael, Labour, the Green Party and Sinn Féin with Department of Finance officials.
It is unrealistic of the Government to think that the Opposition parties would engage in such an exercise in the present political environment. The Government has not told the Opposition, nor the electorate, what is required in this four-year budgetary plan: does it have to spell it out in detail policy measures – which it probably does – or are there general figures to be agreed on taxation, spending cuts etc which a new government could fashion as its own?
It is interesting that Eamon Gilmore has expressed a public view on these developments while the Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, has said nothing.
There is a need for a national consensus at this time of national financial emergency. The best way that it can be executed is in a national forum where all major parties, fully informed by the Department of Finance, prepare their own budgets for four years. The Coalition plan should be accompanied by a detailed four-year plan by Fine Gael and the Labour Party. What are the real choices in cutting €4 billion or more in next year’s budget?
The national forum, offered by the Green Party, could be the means of preparing party plans for the budgets of the next four years. This exercise would have the benefit of forcing the Labour Party in particular to commit to specifying its policies.
These party budgets should become the manifestos for a general election in November so that the public would give a mandate to the choices offered by the parties. The budget could be introduced in December. And the markets could be assured that there was a mandate for the political decisions to be taken when we returned to them in the new year.