TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has signalled that there may be an increase in Government borrowing when he told the Dáil he would keep it “as close as possible” to the target of 9.5 per cent of output. However, he refused to say what the new figure would be.

The Opposition, who accused him of failing to keep them informed or to co-operate on the economy, repeatedly pushed Mr Cowen to state the new borrowing rate and budget target.

Mr Cowen insisted however during sharp exchanges that “the idea that my job is to enable the Opposition to write the budget is not the position”.

Opening Leaders’ Questions, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny welcomed the social partnership talks with the Ictu and said those talks would “presumably be meaningful discussions and the Taoiseach will impart information, which you are not prepared to give to Oireachtas members who are the elected representatives of all the people and all sectors in this country”.

He asked: “Are we to head into this budget on April 7th as ill-prepared as we were for the one in October?” Mr Kenny also called on Mr Cowen to “tell the House and the country that the borrowing requirement will be 9.5 per cent. It’s what you said in this House just a couple of weeks ago.”

Mr Cowen said however that “we’re in the middle of a budgetary process that requires us to look at various case scenarios to see what impact they would have on a fragile economy this year. We have to take account of that.

“Of course we will seek to be as close as possible to 9.5 per cent in the context of what’s best for the economy. The important point is that we reach 3 per cent by 2013.”

Mr Kenny and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore both highlighted the varying budget cut figures given by different Ministers. Mr Gilmore said “there have to be some goalposts” and called on Mr Cowen to give the 2009 budget target and March exchequer figure trend.

Mr Cowen said however that he was not in a position “to come into the House on a daily or weekly basis to give progress reports on budgetary discussions”.

He had indicated the general position, but “I am not in a position to go into further detail on that and anybody who ever had anything to do with budgetary discussions would know why”.

But Mr Gilmore said if Mr Cowen wanted successful talks with the Ictu and to “avoid having strikes, strife and public unrest in this country, you must level with the unions about the figure because in January you agreed a figure of €2 billion with them”.

When Mr Gilmore said “this is your fourth attempt since last summer at trying to get the public finances right,” Mr Cowen retorted that Labour had opposed every one.

Mr Gilmore retorted that “this isn’t your money. This isn’t the Government’s money. You’re not running a private business over there. You’re running our business. You’re running the public business. This is about taxpayers’ money and it’s about time that you came into this House, levelled with us, levelled with the people of this country, about what is the scale of our problem and let’s all get down to dealing with it collectively”.

Mr Cowen said it was not his job to enable the Opposition to write the budget. “What we want to see is people putting out what they believe is the way forward. They should put their proposals on the table, just as we will on April 7th.”