TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen last night vowed to remain in office after an Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll revealed an 18 per cent satisfaction rating.
In another strong defence of his handling of the economy while minister for finance, Mr Cowen said the Government would run its term, and stressed his position was decided by majority support in the Dáil.
“I’m not going to walk away from the post,” Mr Cowen said. “I’m going to make sure that I see it through this period.”
Speaking on RTÉ’s Prime Time programme, the Taoiseach pledged to take the decisions necessary and to deal with the problems facing the State.
“We have to be prepared and we are. I won’t walk away from my responsibility. I am accountable for what I do and I will face that accountability at the end of that term.”
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton did not give a yes or no answer when asked whether he had confidence in party leader Enda Kenny, whose satisfaction rating dropped 7 per cent to 24 per cent.
“It’s not about me. . . I’m just as much in the dock in terms of Fine Gael’s failings. We’re in the dock, we have to look at our whole performance as a party,” he said.
Questioned about the hard-hitting reports by new Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan and international banking experts Klaus Regling and Max Watson, published yesterday, Mr Cowen again said the decisions taken were based on advice and information available at the time, including from the ESRI and Central Bank.
He said the first action he took when appointed minister for finance was to bring in “the most radical abolition of property tax incentives since the foundation of the State.”
He also criticised the Labour Partyf or its stance on the Government bringing forward the bank guarantee scheme.
“The Labour Party was totally opposed to that,” Mr Cowen said.
“If that had happened, we would have had a total implosion of our economy.”
Mr Cowen said there was no significance in him attending a private dinner in Anglo Irish Bank in April 2008 after their shares collapsed, claiming it was a social occasion.
He said people did not want a history lesson but wanted to know “where are we going to go from here”.
On next week’s confidence motion, Mr Cowen added: “We have shown the capacity to take the difficult and necessary decisions.”
Mr Regling and Mr Watson, authors of one of this week’s banking reports, will appear before the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service this morning at Leinster House.
Committee members include Mr Bruton and Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton, who are likely to subject Mr Cowen to further criticism.