OPPOSITION REACTION:FINE GAEL last night said the Government had shied away from taking any of the difficult decisions needed in its new action plan to rejuvenate the economy.
Deputy leader Richard Bruton contended that the document unveiled yesterday provided no new answers or no actions to tackle what he described as the worsening economic crisis.
He said it contained many benign aspirations, but added that the Government could not "build a smart economy based on dumb decisions".
"This document is no more than a repackaging of activities that are already under way.
"Of the 125 action points in the executive summary, only one could be described as new, the €500 million 'innovation fund'. But nobody knows where the money for it is to come from," Mr Bruton said.
He said that immediate decisions were required but that Ministers were "scared rigid of making any decision". That did little to inspire confidence in the economy.
Among the measures he said were needed were: the suspension of the pay deal; a redundancy scheme in the public service; a reverse in Budget day increases in VAT; the immediate recapitalisation of the banks, and PRSI relief for employers taking on extra workers.
Labour Party deputy leader Joan Burton similarly criticised the plan as containing no new ideas or initiatives of substance.
Describing it as "deeply disappointing", she said it contained 100 pages of "stale reheats, leavened with vague aspirations".
Ms Burton said: "There is no leadership and little action. Despite the deep crisis in the Irish economy, the Government is, even yet, one report away from a decision."
She continued by dismissing the main new initiative, a venture capital fund, as being vague and unspecific. She said there was little in the report that would allow the economy to wean itself away from its dependence on construction.
"There is no new money, no actual decision and nothing to take hope from.
"The bulk of the measures have already been outlined in the Budget or other reports.
"Most of the fiscal proposals, insofar as they go, have already been put in place in the Finance Act," Ms Burton said.
Earlier in the Dáil, the two leaders of the main Opposition parties chided the Government for the manner in which it unveiled the plan.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said that the Dáil had been treated contemptuously as no information on the plan had been made available to TDs.
His Labour counterpart, Eamon Gilmore, criticised the decision to launch the report in Dublin Castle and not in Leinster House.
"All major announcements of national significance are made in the House," he said.
Mr Gilmore said: "The only things engaged in Dublin Castle are public relations stunts. The documents launched there are not ones for the recovery of the country but of Fianna Fáil . . .
"If it has been announced in Dublin Castle, it is not worth the paper it is written on. Where is Transport 21, for example? Where is the document on public service reform? Even the National Development Plan is now a work of fiction," he said.
Sinn Féin spokesman on finance Arthur Morgan described the plan as a collection of rehashed policies with very little substance.
"The Government has been far too slow to respond to the economic crisis and today's plan falls far short of what is required.
"What now looks certain is that the Government is set to reward venture capitalists while seeking to penalise the ordinary workers who have built this economy," he said.
