POLITICAL REACTION:FINE GAEL finance spokesman Michael Noonan yesterday insisted the Government had no mandate to announce a four-year budgetary plan in November.
He predicted “more grief for the taxpayer” in the aftermath of the revelation that the Anglo Irish Bank bailout could cost up to €34 billion.
“This Government is running out of time and they have no mandate to make plans for taxing the Irish people and cutting expenditure for four years forward,” Mr Noonan said.
“Those who watch Ireland, the people who sell the bonds . . . the international bankers, they know it’s a failed administration, they know they’re running out of time, they know they’re running out of numbers and there could be an election before Christmas or afterwards.”
Mr Noonan claimed the Government’s banking policies had put the creditworthiness of the whole country at risk.
“You’d have to reflect on the headline in the New York Times: ‘Can a bank bring down a country?’ And you’d have to say this morning, they’ve gone damn close to it,” he said.
“They have got us into a position where they’ve decided that Anglo Irish was too big to fail. Now the opposite is true, it’s too big to save. That’s the problem.”
Speaking on the plinth outside Leinster House, Mr Noonan said he did not want to be alarmist but warned there would be consequences for the Coalition’s policies.
“They have reached a point now that they have been demonstrably proved wrong because they cannot have a bond auction in a month’s time. I mean, there’s absolute proof that they’ve wrecked the creditworthiness of the country, because they cannot afford to go to the markets,” he said.
Labour Party’s spokeswoman on finance Joan Burton said the “blanket” guarantee given to the banks two years ago, which the Government had called “the cheapest bailout in the world”, had turned into a disaster of historic proportions.
Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said his party decided to table a motion of no confidence in Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan after the Anglo figure was announced.
“It is our belief that Minister Lenihan withheld information from the Dáil when he asked for support for the original bank guarantee scheme,” he said.