JUNIOR FINANCE Minister Martin Mansergh warned last night that failure to implement the pensions levy and other savings this year would leave the Irish economy requiring emergency support from “inside the euro zone or outside”.
This would leave Ireland at risk of being run by outside forces and current complaints would look like a “storm in a tea cup.”
Dr Mansergh, Minister of State at the Department of Finance, defended the legislation implementing savings of €2 billion, saying that it was necessary because of a catastrophic fall in Government revenues.
“We are often inclined to exaggerate the outside world’s interest in our domestic dramas, scandals, and follies. This time, however, there can be no doubt about the keen attention abroad being paid to potentially vulnerable euro zone economies, including ours, all the more so perhaps because of the star rating accorded to us up to the recent past.
“The question being asked is whether the Government in particular, and the political system in general, are capable of handling the situation,” said the Minister.
“If we were to withdraw this Bill or vote it down, as many are demanding, we would risk such an erosion of confidence that our economic destiny, for the first time since independence in 1922, would very likely be taken out of our hands.
“We would face as a condition of the emergency support we would then require, whether from inside the euro zone or outside, demands for far more drastic medicine, which would quite possibly make present complaints about fairness and equity seem like a storm in a teacup. Those of us that work in more protected areas of the economy, and who find it hard to accept that we now find ourselves in a completely changed situation, need to wake up fast,” Mr Mansergh told the Dáil.
Meanwhile, the Garda raid on Anglo Irish Bank headquarters was welcomed last night by Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey, who said the Government did not want to see anybody getting away with illegal activities in the banking sector. He said the raid showed the Government was serious in what it had said all along, that those who did wrong would be pursued.
However, Fine Gael deputy leader and finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the Fraud Squad raid on Anglo Irish only reinforced his party’s call for a clear-out of the Financial Regulator.
“It is extraordinary that the Government had knowledge of the share transactions involving the ‘golden circle’ almost 12 months ago, yet the matter is only now being investigated. It is equally extraordinary that the transactions between Irish Life and Permanent and Anglo Irish which the Government had information about in October are only now being investigated.”
