TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has insisted he will not shirk spending cuts by relying on borrowing or extra taxation. His comments came as the Government had a comfortable victory in the Dáil vote on education cuts and announced a reversal of a cut in disability allowance.
Mr Cowen said he disagreed with those who said cuts in public spending could be avoided by borrowing or extra taxation.
Speaking at a business round table organised by the Economist magazine in the Conrad Hotel in Dublin, Mr Cowen said: "Our day-to-day spending exceeds our revenue coming in by over €1,000 for every man, woman and child in the State. Ten per cent of the cost of every teacher, doctor and nurse is paid for from borrowing.
"This will have to be paid back by future generations of Irish people. We cannot simply borrow our way out of trouble or return to the days of punitive tax rates . . .," he said.
Mr Cowen said the decisions the Government was now making would determine whether we threw away the economic progress achieved over the past decade.
"We are battling the most severe global economic and financial conditions for a century. That is how stark this situation is and that is why we have been taking the difficult decisions that we have," he said.
Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin announced yesterday a decision to stop paying some teenagers the disability allowance would be reversed. "The Government has agreed that the existing arrangements, whereby disability allowance is paid to 16 and 17-year-olds will continue, pending the completion of a full review of the disability allowance scheme," she said.
Fine Gael social and family affairs spokeswoman Olwyn Enright said the reversal on disabilitity allowance was a sign the Budget was "falling apart at the seams".
Last night, the Minister for State at the Department of Finance Martin Manseragh said he "couldn't care less" if the decision on disability allowance was considered a U-turn.
Speaking at the University of Limerick, where he addressed a party cumann, Mr Mansergh said: "Frankly, I couldn't care less if people call it U-turns or don't call it U-turns, I'd be far more concerned to get it right".
Earlier in the Dáil, the Government survived the vote on education cuts by six votes. Green Party education spokesman Paul Gogarty spoke in favour of the Government amendment to a Labour motion calling for the cuts to be reversed.
Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes dubbed Mr Gogarty a "rebel without a clue". Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said: "The Green party is dead."
Independent TD Jackie Healy-Rae said he would continue his support for the Government for the rest of its term. Independent TD Michael Lowry also supported the Government in yesterday's vote.
Earlier, at the Conrad Hotel, the Taoiseach said the Government needed allies in communicating the changed circumstances to the public.
Yesterday evening, the director general of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation, Turlough O'Sullivan, said that while not all recent Government decisions had been well thought out "at a time of crisis it behoves all of us to support the general thrust of the Budget strategy . . . It is not edifying to see protests by sectional interests at a time when we need to be sending out a signal to the international community that we are a mature society capable of managing in the good times and the bad."
