'We just got stuck into it and made decisions and . . . we have to build a post-recovery Ireland'

INTERVIEW: The Coalition faces a daunting task to drive recovery, says Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, but progress has been made…

INTERVIEW:The Coalition faces a daunting task to drive recovery, says Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, but progress has been made and grounds for considerable optimism now exist

LABOUR PARTY leader Eamon Gilmore is adamant that these challenging times demand a new approach to coalition in which parties set aside normal political rivalries in the national interest.

In an interview with The Irish Timesin advance of the Labour parliamentary party's annual autumn gathering which takes place in Tullow, Co Carlow, today he stressed the unprecedented nature of the task confronting the Coalition.

“The way I see it is that there is one Government. In normal times the second-largest party in this country would be leading the Opposition. These are not normal times and that is why the second-largest party in the State, the Labour Party, is in Government to do what I think the country wanted us to do last February, which is to bring about political change. But then to get into government, roll up our sleeves and deal with the crisis the country was facing and that is what we are doing.”

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The Tánaiste said that being in power at this juncture was not about the party putting its stamp on Government or Fine Gael putting its stamp on Government. They had agreed a programme for government and common objectives, with the principal objective being economic recovery.

“I have certainly made it very clear that the Labour Party’s job at this time of crisis is to what is needed by the country and to do that in Government in co-operation with Fine Gael. There isn’t, and there isn’t going to be, a sense of internal Government rivalry. We are not competing to outdo each other or to outshine each other or to put a Labour stamp on this or a Fine Gael stamp on that. We are one and we have a job of work to do as a Government and we are doing it together.”

He stressed the role of the Economic Management Council, comprising himself, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin.

“The day-to-day working relationship between myself and the Taoiseach is very close. The day-to-day working relationship between Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin is very close and the co-operation between Ministers in the Cabinet is close.”

He said the next general election was 4½ years away and now was a time for the parties in Government, and arguably for the people in Opposition as well, to focus on what is required to bring about economic recovery.

“I am under no illusions but that we have some very difficult days ahead in terms of decisions that we have to make. But we have to be clear in our heads what it is we are doing and what we are doing is leading a process of recovery.

“So we have made a good start. I don’t want to exaggerate the start we have had but I think we have made progress and made more progress than some people thought we would make in some areas and we are going to stay focused on it.”

He said that when the Government was formed last February both parties were aware of the broad state of the economy and the public finances.

“I think the shock on entering Government was the speed with which we had to respond to it. We had no time to study the files and do a lot of reading around it. The Government was formed on March 9th. There was a European Council meeting on the 11th. We had the first meeting of the Economic Management Council at 8am on the morning of the 10th which was preparing for the European Council meeting on the following day. And then we had the bank issue which had to be dealt with by the end of March. We had to respond very quickly to what we had inherited.

“We just got stuck into it and made decisions and got on with it. I think we have made progress. We have a lot more to do yet but I think there are grounds for considerable optimism now for the country.

“We know that there is a lot more heavy lifting that has to be done. We are determined to do that. But we are doing it for a reason. We want the economy to recover and we have to build a post-recovery Ireland. That means reforming the way in which health and education and public services and the way in which our country is run.”

He pointed out that today’s meeting will be the largest gathering to date of the Labour parliamentary party which doubled its size in the election and now has 52 members between TDs, MEPs and Senators.

“We are now the second-largest party in the State and back in Government after an absence of 14 years.

“We are in Government in a very difficult, very unique, very challenging time.

“If you look at the set of circumstances that we’ve inherited and we have to deal with there is no precedent for it; there is no template we can follow. So therefore we are very much a pioneering Government. I think we are making our own template.”

He said huge progress had been made in the first six months. He pointed to the banking crisis and the fact that within three weeks of the Government being formed the results of the stress test on the banks became available and immediate decisions had to be made about restructuring the Irish banking system.

The Tánaiste said the Government was implementing a €6 billion adjustment from last year’s budget. It had succeeded in renegotiating the deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund and had secured a reduction in the interest rate on that far in excess of what was expected.

“We are now heading into the period for the budget of 2012. That is going to be difficult. We have committed to getting the deficit down to 8.6 per cent in 2012 and we will stick to that target. That is going to mean that there are going to be significant reductions in public expenditure and that we also have to increase revenues and widen the tax base.”

He said there was no doubt that social welfare expenditure would have to come down as part of that process.

Asked if he had changed his mind since taking office about his controversial comment during the election that it was “Labour’s way or Frankfurt’s way”, the Tánaiste conceded that it might have been chapel gate language.

“Context is everything so let’s put that in context. I said that when I was talking about the renegotiation of the deal. The point I was making was that the Labour Party was committed to a renegotiation of the deal. What I was dealing with was a view that it couldn’t be renegotiated.

“All I would say now is that we have renegotiated it. Very often in the course of an election campaign there is chapel gate language that is used to simplify what are at times very complex issues.

“But we have renegotiated the deal. At that time people were saying, ‘No, you can’t do that; you are not going to get a reduction in the interest rate. They won’t change a syllable in it.’ Well we have got a significant renegotiation of it. It is the result that matters and the result is that we did renegotiate it.”

Stephen Collins

Stephen Collins

Stephen Collins is a columnist with and former political editor of The Irish Times