LABOUR leader Eamon Gilmore accused the Government of taking the country “to the pawnshop” through the IMF-EU deal agreed on Sunday and he claimed Taoiseach Brian Cowen had “no shame”.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the bailout from the Swedish government and the British chancellor of the exchequer was not what the people of the sovereign Irish State expected from the Government.
But, during sharp exchanges, Mr Cowen asked both leaders where else they expected the State to get funding, which was much cheaper through the IMF and EU than on the international money markets.
During rowdy Leaders’ Questions, Mr Gilmore told the Taoiseach: “You have no shame after what you have done to this country to stand up here on the day that you come back with a lousy deal like that” and claim “that you have got a bargain”.
The Taoiseach had insisted that an interest rate of 5.8 per cent over 7½ years was better than the 5.2 per cent over three years offered to Greece. “And if it’s such a bad deal why is it that Greece is now looking for our terms?”
Mr Cowen insisted there was no fettering of future governments. “It’s a matter for this or future governments to decide if they wish to draw down this facility or not,” he said.
But the Labour leader said that in anybody’s language 5.8 per cent was “more” than 5.2 per cent and “it is way more than is being required in other member states”.
The deal “is a sell-out of the taxpayer who will now have to pay the full cost of bailing out the banks, protecting the European banks and pay the full costs for the mismanagement of the economy by Fianna Fáil”.
Mr Gilmore questioned the constitutionality of the IMF-EU deal going through without a Dáil vote. He quoted Article 29.5.2 of the Constitution that “the State shall not be bound by any international agreement involving a charge upon public funds unless the terms of the agreement shall have been approved by Dáil Eireann”.
But Mr Cowen, who referred to Article 29.4 for the Government’s authority on the deal, insisted that he had “taken every step possible in the national interest to try and bring this country forward again”.
Pressed about putting the IMF-EU deal to the Dáil, Mr Cowen said “the first instalment for the draw-down of money in this will be the budget of 2011”.
Mr Kenny claimed the bailout deal had been forced on the State because the Taoiseach and his Ministers ran up such debt over the past 10 years. “Their inept supervision of the banking system, along with their negligence and arrogance, led to the collapse of that system,” he said.
He added that “mismanagement, maladministration and misguided decisions” had led to the current situation. “We are now depending on handouts from these institutions,” he added.
Mr Kenny said that the bailout from the Swedish government and the British chancellor of the exchequer was not what the people of the sovereign Irish State expected from the Government.
“We now face a crippling debt that will place the Irish people in hock for the next generation,” he said.
Mr Cowen said there were choices available to the State.
“If Deputy Kenny’s view is that this deal should not be taken up, I ask him where he expects this State to get funding,” he added.
“We can now find the room and space in which to pursue a policy pathway that will enable us not only to stabilise the economy, but, also, to look for growth in the economy in the years ahead,” he added.
“It is a question of trying to find a means of increasing confidence in the economy domestically and internationally.”
