LABOUR FINANCE spokeswoman Joan Burton has sharply criticised rating agency Standard Poor’s for commenting on the composition of the Government, which she said was none of their business.

Ms Burton said she believed rating agencies needed reform and expressed “astonishment” at the agency’s political comments. She also criticised European commissioner Charlie McCreevy for “consistently refusing to entertain” reform of the rating agencies, which establish a country’s creditworthiness.

Rejecting the claim, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said Mr McCreevy had been “doing something” about rating agencies and conflicts of interest and the “work that they do”.

He added that reform was as much up to member states and the EU as it was up to the commissioner.

Mr Cowen also said of the March exchequer returns: “indications are that the decline in tax receipts evident in January and February has continued into March”.

But “the National Treasury Management Agency has been in a position to raise large sums of money through bonds this first quarter and I have every reason to believe that can continue”.

Ms Burton voiced her criticism of the rating agency during Leaders’ Questions. She had asked about the cost of the downgrading this week from AAA to AA+ for Government borrowing.

She estimated it would “cost us half a percentage point, and depending on how much the Government decides to borrow – we won’t know that until the budget – the cost this year could be up to €500 million, and it could be double that for the whole of next year”.

She added: “Can I just say I listened with some astonishment, I have to say, to the gentleman from Standard Poor’s making comment on the composition of our Government.

“I don’t think that’s any business of any foreign rating agency, and I was one of the people, by the way, who for the last two years together with the party of European Socialists has called for ratings agencies to be reformed,” she said.

“But your former colleague Mr McCreevy in Europe has consistently refused to entertain the reform of the ratings agencies, because these guys boosted everything on the way up and now they’re negative about everything on the way down, and I think they have some things about this country wrong.

“I actually think we have more and better prospects than they acknowledge, but because the rating agencies are not subject to supervision, we are as a country, unfortunately, at their mercy.

“And you can discuss that with your colleague in Brussels, Mr McCreevy, who has taken a very high-handed attitude that controlling rating agencies would be bad for international markets and capitalism.”

She asked Mr Cowen to talk to the commissioner “about actually reforming the rating agencies so that all countries get a fair deal from these guys”.

The Taoiseach said “the commissioner is in the business of doing something in relation to credit rating agencies regarding conflict of interest or anything that arises in respect of the work that they do and the forecasts they make”.

“It isn’t correct to say that Commissioner McCreevy is indifferent to the role that they play. I’m sure they give their opinions in a professional manner, but it has arisen – I know for a fact myself – that a credit rating agency issue is a matter he has taken up.

“I would suggest that it is member states and the council and Ecofin that will have to come up to the plate in this matter as much as the role and initiative by the commissioner himself or by the commission.”