TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen said he accepted his share of responsibility for the financial crisis when he addressed a Fianna Fáil meeting in Glenties, Co Donegal, last night.
Mr Cowen said Ireland’s banking system was undermined by “wrong” lending policies that were pursued and the “incapacity” of the regulatory system to predict the outcome of those policies.
“I, as Minister for Finance, and this party in Government of course take our share of responsibility. But what I will not accept, and what must never be accorded to any individual or party, is the individual lending decisions made by those banks in determining what was going to happen in the event of the exposures coming about.”
Mr Cowen served as minister for finance between 2004 and 2008. Last night he said the policies previously pursued by Fianna Fáil had brought about budget surpluses, jobs and improvements in standards of living. “I’m proud of the fact that in good times when we had a sustainable set of public finances, when all of the international and domestic data suggested continuing growth for the economy, in the absence of the crisis that has now emerged, we did what we set out to do: to help people at the bottom.”
He said Ireland was “beginning to earn its way in the world again” by creating sufficient funds to increase exports.
He “held no brief” for the banks, but insisted the Opposition was refusing to face up to the fact that having a functioning economy meant having a functioning banking system.
He said the Opposition have to be asked a simple question: “What happens next July or August when the funding position of the National Treasury Management Agency will have been dealt with, will have come out with the money it has available to it. What happens then? Because at the moment we’re spending €50 billion and we’re taking in €31 billion.”