SINN FÉIN was accused by Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin of attempting to bankrupt the country by proposing that Ireland renege on the EU-IMF deal.

He said the party was suggesting that the money required to pay gardaí, teachers, nurses and doctors could be generated by magic out of some place.

“The people are not fools, however, and they understand the fantasy of that,” he added.

The Minister was responding to Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan) who challenged Labour to say how it could reconcile its opposition to his party’s motion opposing the part-privatisation of the ESB and its clear pre-election promise.

The Labour election manifesto, said Mr Ó Caoláin, had clearly committed the party to the concept of public enterprise and its determination to ensure that semi-State companies played a full role in the economy’s recovery.

Labour, he added, had expressed its opposition to “short-termist privatisation” of key State assets, such as Coillte and the energy networks.

Mr Ó Caoláin said there should be no doubt that by part-privatising the ESB, the Government was implementing the EU-IMF deal.

“The Labour Party denounced that deal prior to and during the course of the general election campaign in February,” he added.

He asked how the sale of the ESB could be anything other than the “short-termism” which Labour had already condemned.

Mr Howlin said things had changed since the Government took over, adding that Ireland had moved away from the abyss.

“I, and other Ministers, have stated repeatedly that the re-negotiation of the bad deal that was struck by our predecessors in government was not an event, but a process,” he added.

“We have engaged relentlessly since entering government to renegotiate that deal, with, quite frankly, remarkable success,” said Mr Howlin.