SINN FÉIN Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláinhas disputed Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny's contention that Tánaiste Mary Coughlan was "shifting downwards to the Department of Education".
Mr Ó Caoláin said he disagreed with the remark “to the effect that education is a lesser portfolio. Responsibility for education is a hugely important matter”. However he said “this reshuffle will preserve the fundamentally flawed economic approach of the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government. Its slash and burn policy will not lead to recovery but to deeper recession.”
Speaking about the departmental changes announced in the Dáil yesterday afternoon by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Mr Ó Caoláin said he would “have no hesitation in welcoming this Cabinet reshuffle if it were accompanied by fundamental changes in Government policies, but there is no such change.
“The reshuffled Fianna Fáil-Green Cabinet is on the same course to disaster that it has steered since it came together in June 2007.”
Referring to high levels of youth unemployment, he hit out at Government “inaction” and said young people “have got a two-fingered gesture from Fianna Fáil and the Greens”.
He said Mr Cowen “should ask young people whether they care about whose faces sit around the Cabinet table, about who was elevated or about who was disappointed because they were not shuffled upwards”.
He also criticised the retention of Minister for Health Mary Harney.
“There will clearly be no change in health policy. Minister Harney is staying on, prolonging her tenure in office where she has made an already inequitable health service even more inequitable and where she has promoted for-profit privatisation and ruthless centralisation.
“We know too well the results of the disastrous health policies that have been pursued by Fianna Fáil-led governments since 1997.”
Tánaiste Mary Coughlanstaunchly defended the Government.
She said it “has done Trojan work in helping to stabilise our public finances and making headway in dealing with the crisis in our banks.
“That has taken energy, leadership and a willingness to put the necessary tough choices above the fascination that the parties opposite have with opinion polls.”
Referring to her new portfolio, she said “above all the other positives we have, however, stand our people and, in particular, our young, highly educated workforce” and young people “are key to our future economic success”.
