FINE GAEL offered the Government its Dáil time to facilitate the passage of budgetary measures and allow for an early general election.
“You should take that opportunity . . . and let us go home at Christmas, with the intention of the Dáil not coming back in January,’’ said party finance spokesman Michael Noonan last night.
He said that while Fine Gael would not support the measure, it did not want the processing of the Finance Bill, following the budget, to be used as an excuse by a “failed government’’ to delay an election which was now so necessary.
Mr Noonan said the Taoiseach “looks increasingly like Macbeth in the last act, surrounded by enemies, abandoned by friends, but pledged to go down fighting’’. It was time, he said, to take the Dáil out of its pain and have a new year election.
Minister of State for Finance Dr Martin Mansergh said the Minister for Finance had been accused in the past of ramming measures through the House, and it was ironic that the main Opposition party wanted him to rush through the full budgetary process in the short period before the end of the year.
Speaking during the debate on the EU-IMF bailout, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said it was “a capitulated statement because it has been put together by technicians and civil servants and adopted by the political process’’.
Politicians, he added, were not technocrats but elected representatives who had to identify solutions and make decisions.
“In this case, what happened was that this statement, decision and deal were put together by people who are not elected,’’ Mr Kenny added. “They tossed it around for a number of weeks and eventually came to a conclusion that was endorsed and accepted by the Minister for Finance on behalf of the Irish people and Government.’’
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore repeated that the terms and conditions of the EU-IMF funding should be revisited, and the next government would have no option but to do so.
“We need to work with our European partners to fix this, but the commission needs to do more than offer the least possible funding at the highest rate while making an example of Ireland,’’ he added. Mr Gilmore said it might be the case that the bailout was the best deal that Fianna Fáil could get, but it was not the best deal Ireland could get.
“The commission will, of course, insist that no other deal is possible. But then things that were impossible three weeks ago have become possible today,’’ he added.
Sinn Féin’s Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin rounded on Mr Cowen for his earlier criticism of his party’s economic proposals.
“If this Taoiseach and Government had shown less arrogance and more willingness to listen to alternative viewpoints and proposals, then it would not have led this State into the current perilous position,’’ he added.
Mr Ó Caoláin said his party had some experience of negotiations.
“Looking at this rotten deal, I can only conclude that this Government could not negotiate snow off a rope,’’ he added.
